Surprise as Woodcut Farm development refused again
Members of Maidstone Borough Council’s planning referrals committee have voted to continue to oppose a planing application for mixed office, warehousing and light industrial use on part of the former KIG site.
The decision came as a welcome surprise for many of the protesters opposed to development at Woodcut Farm, near junction 8 of the M20.
The application had been rejected by the council’s plan- ning committee last July, but when the developer appealed, planning officers urged members to change their minds and allow the council team not to defend the refusal at appeal.
Officers argued that the case was indefensible because the borough’s emerging Local Plan now included an allocation for employment use at the site.
However, when last month the planning committee again voted to stick to its guns – this time with an increased majority – the chief planning officer Rob Jarman referred the matter to the little-used planning referrals committee.
The three-man committee comprises councillors who do not sit on the planning committee.
It had the legal power to overturn the planning committee’s decision, and were urged to do so by officers because of the potential high costs involved of losing a case at appeal, estimated to amount to around £400,000.
Independent councillor Janetta Sams chaired the meeting and allowed considerable leeway in taking comments from members of the public and visiting councillors.
There was much debate about the ethics of a three-man committee being able to overrule the decision of the 13-man planning committee.
But after two hours of debate, only Cllr Mortimer (Lib Dem) voted to withdraw from the appeal.
Cllr Sams and Hinder voted to back the planning committee and continue to fight the appeal.
A senior figure on the council said afterwards that had the referrals committee overruled the planning committee, the members of the planning committee had been ready to resign en masse.
Cllr Shellina Prendergast (Con) declared it had been “a good night for democracy”.