Enough is enough on new housing

The many residents that fought for the Chilmington Green housing number to be lowered to 5,750 from its original 7,000 will be angered by the prospect of a further 600 homes.

Chilmington Green brings considerable congestion to surrounding areas and a further 600 homes will not only be the catalyst for real mayhem during peak times but will also be unsustainable.

Is the timing of this announcement linked to the £10 million bond KCC demand of Hodson Development to allow work to dual the A28 to commence. The bond is deliverable once 400 homes are built but at the present rate of build, it is thought this is unlikely to happen before 2023. Residents feel consultation on where developments can take place is worthless, because National Planning Policy enables development anywhere, regardless of what the Local Plan might state. Where residents once lived with certainty to enable them to get on with their daily lives, they now face uncertainty and a constant drain on their time to fight further unsustainable developments like this one by Hodson.

Councils have been blamed for the low delivery of housing numbers, when in reality developers are sitting on over one million homes with planning permission that are going nowhere (a recently published statistic). Hodson needs to deliver Chilmington Green before it is given any further planning permissions, so that it, and the workforce, remains focused.

While councils are held to account for the delivery of the Local Plan annual housing numbers, developers are not, even though the Local Plan annual number is predicated on what the developer provided. And so it seems, under present national planning policy, the developer can be financially rewarded for failure since the council has to give them more land if the annual numbers are not met. Councils across the country are running scared, instead of taking a stand against the government by saying enough is enough and producing a Local

Plan that has a housing number to match deliverable and sustainable infrastructure.

Many are questioning whether

Ashford housing number is sustainable given the limitations of its existing road network, hospital and GP practice capacity, and educational capacity.

And how does more development / encroachment of the countryside deliver Ashford’s zero carbon emissions by 2030. Having already put up with two years of disruption, it seems that Ashford residents will face many more years of disruption. Not a good message to encourage people and businesses to relocate to Ashford, given Ashford is capable of doing much better.

Cllr Winston Michael (Ash Ind) under pressure. They are not bothered that new homes on building sites are liable to flooding. If they do consult with local people, they may listen but they ignore any comments, or criticism. It is the same with protest signatures.

And we are talking about a lot more than just 600 houses overall. In reality just add on couple more ‘0’s.

The land where the 600-home Possingham Farm development could go