Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Huge growth is unsustainable across district
The draft Local Plan to 2040 proposes over 8,000 more houses for Canterbury in addition to the many thousands already committed by the 2017 Plan. Such huge growth of a small historic town is completely unsustainable.
The council seems (surprisingly) unaware that the Minister for Housing and Planning has confirmed that the government does not set a mandatory housing target.
Where exceptional circumstances exist, local authorities can put forward their own approach and, if they feel they have a strong case, “they should do so for the good of the communities they serve”.
A historic town of national importance must surely be an exceptional case.
The 2,000-house “new community” proposed on land “north of the University” would be no more than a vast housing estate in the middle of nowhere.
This part of The Blean is not only entirely unspoiled but also virtually inaccessible.
Two essential requirements of any new settlement are good access to the High-speed railway and the motorways. The Blean has neither.
The “concept masterplan” tries to pull the wool over our eyes by showing large areas of green space.
Only two tiny access points are shown for the large network of roads that would be needed - one of them through Blean School! Nowhere in the Plan can I find any justification for this proposal. In fact, it would clearly fall foul of many of the Plan’s fundamental policies for environmental protection and sustainability. Hidden away in the smallprint, the council proposes to bring back the idea of a “Western Bypass” by the construction of an all-purpose junction on the A2 at Harbledown, and “highway improvements” to Rough Common Road. No reasoning or justification is provided, nor any costs or details given, but the outcomes are clear enough.
Rough Common Road is almost wholly residential.
The “highway improvements” would inevitably involve road widening and destruction of property.
Large numbers of properties would suffer from Planning Blight for years to come: no one would be able to sell their houses and nobody would buy them. A longestablished
and thriving village would be destroyed.
What do our city councillors think they are doing in endorsing these awful proposals?
J Mansell Jagger
Director of Planning, Canterbury City Council, 1986-2000