Is development risking status?

In 1011 the Vikings besieged Canterbury, caused havoc and carnage and carted off the Archbishop Alphege to Greenwich where he was killed. Sieges do not end well. Liverpool lost its UNESCO designation when the city’s council allowed development within the UNESCO described area.

Canterbury is the UK’S closest site to UNESCO’S Paris HQ – they will certainly comment on the proposed overdevelopment here. Developers are simply business folk bent on profit.

They don’t live here, they care not a jot for our community. Living here is a community of about 70,000 people who live and work here and make the place what it is.

Ashford’s serried rows of suburban modern brick and concrete houses are multiplying around the once-distinctive and delineated Market Town. Faversham is similarly under the cosh.

Canterbury is next – with no internal roadway improvements, no outer ring-road taken into consideration, no provision for those in dire need of local housing lists.

We live in a UNESCO World Heritage Site city. Globally, this is something quite extraordinary and exceptional. You don’t bolt on vast acreages of monolithic 21st century houses willy nilly to one of the world’s most precious gems without it having a dire effect on the existing city scape.

A few faceless developers versus a population of 70,000.

If the developers win outright the current cityscape is doomed. We do need some new homes gradually and proportionately – everything in moderation. A government statement in December said: “Local authorities will not be expected to build developments at densities that would be wholly out of character with existing areas or which would lead to a significant change of character.” Local Plans inevitably can change and be amended. Councillors can be voted out. If we care for our currently rurally sited city, we must keep demonstrating.

Be sure to vote in May for those who champion and care for the city, not those who put it under siege.

Sieges end badly.

Mike Butler

Old Dover Road, Canterbury

Merton Park in Canterbury is earmarked for 2,075 homes in the city council’s draft Local Plan