Plans thrown into disarray by 5,000 home community

Justasa village outlined development it would be prepared to accept, a scheme for thousands of new homes came along. By Alan Smith

Frustrated and annoyed, that’s how the chairman of Lenham Parish Council said he felt when learning of Maidstone council’s plans to build a 5,000home garden village in his parish.

Richard Greenwood said: “We had just spent two years preparing our own Neighbourhood Plan and carefully deciding how the village could absorb the 1,000 new homes the borough wants us to take under its current 2017 Local Plan when we heard.”

Cllr Greenwood said despite being the elected representatives for Lenham, the first time the parish council knew about the garden village scheme - proposed for land near Charing Heath close to the Ashford borough border - was when they read about it in our sister paper the Kent Messenger.

Cllr Greenwood said: “The borough council kept the whole thing secret.

“They even took the landowners they were talking to away to Ebbsfleet for their discussions so no-one in the village would find out.

“There was no consultation until after it was leaked to the press.”

Lenham’s Neighbourhood Plan is now at the Regulation 16 stage - a final opportunity for villagers to comment on the proposals before it is later put to a referendum and hopefully - adopted.

But Cllr Greenwood said: “Now some villagers are saying to us ‘What’s the point now they are dumping these 5,000 homes on us?’”

The 5,000-home garden village - which the borough is now calling the Heathland Garden Community - is not part of the Lenham Neighbourhood Plan and is bitterly opposed by the parish council, with Cllr Greenwood pointing out that it would start only half a mile from Lenham’s historic Norman church.

His colleague Cllr John Britt was sceptical of the “bonuses” being promised with the garden community proposal which included a new junction on the M20 and a station for the high-speed rail line.

He said: “The whole point of the high-speed trains is they don’t stop.

“They won’t want to build another station just minutes away from Ashford.”

He also said that although large, the proposed 5,000 homes would be nowhere near enough to finance all the promised infrastructure improvements.

He said: “The new M20 Junction 10a cost £110m.

“Will the development generate anywhere near that money?”

Cllr Britt there was an urgent need to crack on with Lenham’s Neighbourhood Plan.

He said: “Once passed it will at least help control development in the village until the borough completes its Local Plan Review - and we are still having applications come forward that are not on our preferred sites.”

The Neighbourhood Plan is being fully supported by Save Our Heath Lands (SOHL) a residents’ protest group set up to fight the garden village proposal.

Spokesman Kate Hammond said: “Lenham is already agreeing to provide for up to 1,000 more new homes in the next 10 years which almost doubles the size of our village.”

Meanwhile, William Cornall, the borough’s director of place and regeneration, has been put in charge of the Heathlands project.

He said a decision would be made in October, but stressed Heathlands was only one garden community under consideration.

■ The public consultation on the Lenham Neighbourhood plan runs until 5pm on March 27.

Comments can be emailed to neighbourhoodplanning@ maidstone.gov.uk

John Britt and Richard Greenwood, who are Lenham Parish councillors, have spoken on housing