Hampshire councillors have warned new government planning reforms will “destroy” local democracy.

The changes mean Hampshire County Council’s Regulatory Committee will shrink from 16 councillors to 13 under new national planning legislation.

At full council on October 1, members criticised the reform, arguing it would weaken local accountability and the link between communities and decision-makers.

Councillor Paul Miller, chairman of the council’s regulatory committee, said the changes would particularly affect district and borough councils, where most planning decisions are made.

He said: “It’s destroying our democratic connections right across the board.”

Cllr Miller added that residents were used to a system that had been in place for decades, and questioned how councils would communicate the changes to the public.

He said: “How are we going to communicate this to our residents? They’ve been used to a system that has been OK, it’s been modified over the last few years, but it’s been going for nearly 50 years.”

Ultimately, he said he could not support the reforms because they went against his beliefs about local decision-making.

Councillor Paul McCormick said the changes represented “an attack on local democracy”, arguing councillors would be “deprived of the opportunity to make any real impact on decision making”.

He said: “Most people when they come to the public gallery is for planning issues rather than any other issue.

“We’ve lost our democratic rights and we’ve lost our power to a large extent to do anything about it.”

In the same line, councillor Terry Norton also criticised the government, saying there was a contradiction between promises of greater devolution and giving councils more control while introducing national rules on how planning committees operate.

Cllr Norton said: “You cannot talk about devolution while simultaneously restricting what decisions locally elected councillors are allowed to make.”

Liberal Democrat group leader councillor Keith House added to the debate that blaming planning committees for delays in building new homes was “fundamentally wrong”.

He said planning committees played an important role in ensuring accountability on issues such as infrastructure, traffic and the quality of developments.

Cllr House said: “This is a move backwards.

“We should be protesting loudly and strongly. We need to be very wary of proposals dressed up as devolution which in fact turn out to be other forms of centralisation.”

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With a “little choice but to accept the changes”, councillors voted to implement the new legislation while continuing to oppose the government’s approach.