Housing sprawl a real threat

When The Grove, Barham, was developed with 40-plus houses in the late 1940s it had its own sewage treatment plant installed above ground near the entrance.

There was no main drainage and most properties had a cesspool that could be emptied on request by a Bridge Blean Council tanker. Many of the older properties were still using the “bucket and chuck it” method of getting rid of their waste.

At present the local wastewater company are having difficulty coping with the volume of waste, RE raw sewage discharges into the sea. So with many of the villages surrounding Canterbury with huge developments, residents should be pressing their parish councils to insist that all large development should have its own sewage disposal plant.

I live in the village of Dunkirk, in the Swale area. We are at present threatened with a proposal for 1,700 houses within our village and the surrounding area. If it happens, our village will be swamped as all the houses are of the family size that will in many cases have two cars.

Central Government tells us there is a large housing shortage, many of it being of the social housing size. Yet none of these are included in any of the developments.

Central Government have allowed the population of this country to get to the point where services cannot cope.

Therefore, Government need to do something to control it, perhaps limiting the number of children each family can have, and certainly making it much more difficult to come to reside here.

So residents: make sure your views are taken note of, otherwise none of us will live in a village, but just a huge sprawl across what was once the green countryside.

Richard Mummery

Dunkirk