Radical manor house proposal

While there are grounds to celebrate Canterbury winning Levelling Up funding of £19 million, it will take a much more radical proposal to make the Milton Manor development proposal make sense [100-home bid for manor house site’, Gazette January 19].

How about the “full application in a month or two” being something as radically different as the following?

Noting the adjacent cycle route, and for those of us less fit than we were, access to electricassist bicycles Residency conditional upon no car ownership; freeing up enough space for the Manor House to be kept Residency conditional upon no private washing machines; using the Manor House as a laundrette, cinema and library of things shared by all

As well as linking to the Pilgrims Hospice charity warehouse and shops around the corner, create a fund to build raised walkways along the cycle route where it floods along

Hambrook Marshes Something along these lines wouldn’t increase traffic through Wincheap.

It might seem wanton destruction to destroy Millton Manor, a modern luxury house sited in its own grounds but, for the greater good, this will make room for 100 more modest dwellings.

Perhaps the more relevant question we should ask is why wasn’t there a wealthy buyer prepared keep it as a single dwelling?

The answer to this was to be found in my weekend newspaper which said that as well as 10s of thousands of low-paid workers that left the UK after Brexit, some 14,000 millionaires have also moved abroad since 2016. So large, expensive properties could finish up like French chateaus, standing empty unless other uses can be found for them. This also is relevant to Rhys Griffiths’ claim that Canterbury should be the County Town for Kent [‘Canterbury should be new County Town’, Gazette January 19].

It was the administration centre of east Kent until 1814, being one of the largest towns and sending two MPS to parliament. But Canterbury’s population failed to keep up with other towns in Kent, so that now it can only send one with the help of Whitstable. To become a County Town, Canterbury’s population

would have to triple, which seems unlikely considering the resistance to the relatively modest expansion that is being proposed at present.

But would we want more bureaucrats anyway, or would we prefer to remain a centre for the Church, education and tourism? I know what I would choose.

Mike Armstrong

Queens Avenue, Canterbury