Selling land for 5,000 homes is ‘not our idea’
A farmer whose land is needed for Maidstone council’s garden community of 5,000 homes says he sees no reason why he should sign up to the scheme. The Kent Messenger was the first to reveal news of the authority’s plans to create a development at Lenham Heath after months of secret talks had been held between its representatives, landowners and lawyers.
David Smith, a retired oil industry geologist, who now runs sheep on the 30-acre Hubbards Farm said he and other landowners had been forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement after being approached by the council’s agents, Barton Willmore, last June, just to find out what was being proposed.
He said: “I was aghast. They’re talking about 600 acres to create a new town the size of Faversham.” He added: “I see no reason whyIwouldsignuptothisat the moment.”
Mr Smith said it had come as a “huge relief” when news of the scheme broke into the public domain. He said: “People should know - it’s not the landowners who wanted this. The council came to us.” Mr Smith said Barton Willmore had talked of an impending Government policy put forward by Sir Oliver Letwin which would have made it easier for local authorities to use compulsory purchase powers to initiate garden village schemes.
Mr Smith said the implication was that the landowners had better get on board or have their land compulsory purchased anyway.
Since then Sir Oliver has left the Conservative party and the policy has fallen off the agenda.
Mr Smith, 61, said the council’s proposals would effectively make the landowners bear the cost of the new motorway junction, railway station, schools and other facilities needed to mitigate the enormous expansion in population by under-paying them for the land.
Official Government figures in 2017 valued residential land at £1.3m per acre, but Mr Smith said landowners were being offered only a tenth of that. He said when the council sold the land on to developers it stood to gain more than £1m an acre.
Mr Smith said: “I have enormous sympathy with the local community. This will be hugely damaging to the environment and blight Lenham completely.”
But he said the landowners were also being offered a rough deal. He said: “We wouldn’t receive the last of our money until the entire development had been built out - if at all. I could be in my 80s by then. But what if the property market collapses in the meantime, or the developer goes bust and the homes never get built? We are being expected to bear all the risk.” Mr Smith said he could lose his livelihood, his 600-year-old home where he has lived for 20 years with his Iranian-born wife Afsaneh, and take a big hit in Capital Gains Tax, possibly ending up worse off.
The Kent Messenger understands the council is in consultation with eight large landowners, and possibly up to 20 more families may have to lose smaller areas from their gardens to facilitate road-widening and other aspects of development.
The large landowners were asked to sign a lock-in agreement, consenting not to sell their land to another developer.
That agreement expires on Thursday, December 12, when Maidstone council expects to make them a detailed offer. A council spokesman said: “The intention would be to agree terms on a negotiated basis. Regardless, no firm decisions in respect of the overall proposal have been made.”
Meanwhile, the results of the council’s Call for Sites exercise are due to be published on Monday, November 4, when residents will discover which sites have been proposed for development. The council received more than 330 submissions, including sites for business development, retail and leisure, as well as housebuilding.