Kentish Express Ashford & District
‘A development for local people’
Almost 300 people turned out to public meetings to see how a projected 10,000 garden town could change the landscape between Hythe and Ashford.
Representatives from the Otterpool Park project met residents at public exhibitions held at Westenhanger Castle and the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone.
Billboards depicting the scheme, earmarked for green land around Folkestone Racecourse, helped residents understand and query the designs, after an outline planning application for the first 8,500 homes was submitted earlier this year.
Andy Jarrett, spokesman for Otterpool Park, said: “We’ve had a good attendance. People have been raising questions principally about homes and particularly affordable homes. People are quite keen to see that this is a development for local people and not something that is just there to attract people from outside of the area.”
Speaking about wildlife and questions over the 50% green space target, he said: “As far as wildlife and ecological interests are concerned, there’s been a great deal of survey work to appreciate what is there now and our targets are to improve upon that.
“I think people often have the impression that the countryside is full of creatures that will be lost when the land is developed... The reality in this area is that much of the land has been arable farming, which is actually quite limited in terms of ecology. There will be an overall increase in habitat.”
Talking about the recent elections and influx of Green Party district councillors, he said: “It’s a little early to understand what new aspirations are being brought to the table. Certainly I get the sense that there is an overall support for the concept - whether different groups have particular interests, I think we get to learn.”
He said comments from the exhibitions will help guide specifics such as parks, the town centre, health and education, which includes contributions to grammar schools in the catchment.
Speaking about why only 8,500 homes were included in the outline application, rather than the full projected 10,000 homes, Mr Jarrett said: “The reason was a technical one really. As we started to assess the site for its capacity - to work out what 10,000 homes within the land that we’d intended to build on how that’s worked through - it became evident to us that we couldn’t hit the environmental standards that we wanted to without expanding, so it meant that we increased the extent of the site.
“The time that took meant that we weren’t up to speed with all of the necessary survey work we would need to support a planning application. So we focused on the area that had been fully surveyed whilst indicating what’s likely to come through the rest.
“This project isn’t going to happen overnight.”