ROOT CAUSE
Tree order delays school
The ongoing row over land billed as the home of a new secondary school has reared up once more.
Last week councillors ordered the protection of ancient trees on the proposed site of Maidstone School of Science and Technology, off Huntsman Lane.
The order sparked fury from Valley Invicta Academies Trust, which saw it as a roadblock to plans for the school’s opening in September 2019.
Ahead of the meeting, the trust’s planning agents, Barker Town Planning, branded the Tree Preservation Order (TPO) “perverse”, stating it “only serves to highlight the ongoing intentions to frustrate the delivery of this school.”
VIAT had hoped to open the school in September this year, but following a deferral last August, the trust launched an appeal to “take the matter out of the council’s hands,” hours before plans were set to be approved with conditions on the development’s landscaping and transportation impact.
Chairing the meeting, Cllr Clive English said: “The idea that this TPO will prevent the school being built is not true. It will simply require the school to actually talk to us as a planning authority, which is something their agency has refused to do.”
But Barker Town Planning raised concerns that nesting birds could prevent development, writing: “Should nesting occur, it will prevent development for 12 months, thus ren- dering it impossible to deliver the proposed school.
“We have already been prejudiced and cannot deliver the school for the September 2018 academic year and this may jeopardise the opening of any part of the school by September 2019.”
Public inquiry starts on May 21 and could last up to six days.