Plans for three huge housing developments are being reviewed, but residents hoping for a reduction in the number of homes will be disappointed.
Maidstone Borough Council has been holding a series of “stakeholder” meetings about the three biggest projects proposed in its Local Plan Review.
They are the 5,000 home Healthlands garden village at Lenham Heath, another at 2,000 at Lidsing and the redevelopment of Invicta Park Barracks at Springfield in Maidstone, when the Royal Engineers move out, for 1,300 homes.
Cllr Stuart Jeffery (Green), who now leads the borough council after last year’s May elections, said: ”There is still a lot of anger about all three sites.
“But the numbers are fixed. Now that they are in the Local Plan only Angela Rayner (the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing) has the power to alter them.
“What we are seeking to do is to prepare a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) – a masterplan, if you like – for each of the sites, so that we can find the best possible outcome from a bad plan.”
The Local Plan Review was adopted under the council’s previous Conservative administration in March last year.
Cllr Jeffery said: “The choice we have is to engage with the promoters and seek to get the best possible development, or to sit back and let the developers have rip.
“I’m not prepared to let the developers have rip.”
A key aspect of the Lenham Garden village is the creation of a new commuter rail station, but Network Rail, which would have to agree such a plan, was not represented at the stakeholders’ meetings.
Nevertheless, Cllr Jeffery said: “I’m clear there must be a firm timetable for the provision of a station (for the plan to go ahead).“
However, the borough council is itself a joint promoter of the Lenham Heath scheme, along with Homes England (a government quango).
Lenham parish council chairman John Britt, who was at the meetings, scathingly described the process as a “mucking fuddle.”
He said: “When the government inspector allowed the inclusion of Heathlands in the Local Plan, he said there were elements of the plan that were a good idea, but that there was not enough detail available.
“That is what is supposed to be sorted out in the SPD, but it is not happening.
“We now know that Network Rail has said it’s not going to be paying for a station – they say the developers must pay.
“But even then, Network Rail wants to see a business plan to show how income from passengers will pay for the running costs over possibly a 10-year period – and there’s no such document.”
“The Local Plan requires the station to be in place at the end of the first phase of development – that is when only 1400 of the 5,000 homes will be built.
“Are 1400 households, only a proportion of whom are going to be using the railway, going to generate enough revenue to pay for the trains?
“Remember that the planning inspector said that without a railway station, the ‘benefits’ of Heathlands were ‘marginal’!”
Cllr Britt added: “Then there is the recent application from Brett Aggregates for a sand quarry on part of the garden village land.
“It was known that this was coming, but Bretts’ timetable has slipped and they will still be quarrying much longer into the building period.”
“Furthermore, they have said they will not backfill the quarry, only resurface it.
“That is going to leave the land at a much lower level, potentially below the water table – with the River Stour nearby.
“That problem has not been addressed.
“The answer from Homes England is that all these details can be sorted out at the planning application stage. That’s too late and not what the planning inspector wanted.
“There’s the whole question of sewage disposal from the new homes that was supposed to be addressed. It hasn’t.”
“The whole thing is a mucking fuddle.”
Cllr Britt said: “Furthermore, we have just been advised that these stakeholder meetings are going to be bi-monthly, instead of monthly as planned – when there is so much still to sort out!
“These matters are important. People are going to have to live with the consequences of Heathlands long after I‘m dead and buried.
“But these stakeholders meetings – to which parties like the Campaign Fo Rural England and the Save Our Heathlands group are not even invited – really do just feel like a box-ticking exercise.”
Meanwhile Lidsing is being promoted by the landowner, Kevin Attwood, and Invicta Park Barracks by the MoD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO).
Vanessa Jones (Ind) is both a borough councillor and chairman of the Bredhurst Parish Council which will be severely affected by the Lidsing plan.
She has attended two stakeholder meetings, with another planned for February 28.
She said: “So far it’s been all about setting terms of reference – we haven’t got down to the nitty gritty.
“But there is an urgency here: the promoter – Kevin Attwood – has said he intends to put in his planning application before the end of the year – and there’s nothing legally to stop him. He doesn’t have to wait for our SPD.
“We didn’t want this (garden village) in the Local Plan, but it’s there so we have to make the best of it.”
“What we will be looking for is assurance that the proposed east/west corridor off the new spur road at J4 of the M2 is completed at an early stage, and we want to see details of the proposed school and medical centre.”
Following a Defence Review, it was announced in 2016 that Invicta Park Barracks, home to the 36 Engineer Regiment and to the Queen’s (CORRECT) Gurkha Engineers, would close in 2029.
It lies within an unparished area of Maidstone.
Since the site was allocated in the Local Plan, there has been more awareness of the historic importance of the site – it was once the parkland surrounding Park House, a Grade II* listed house built in 1792 and the historic seat of the Lushington family.
The poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was a frequent visitor there.
There is also a Hindu temple on site, used by the Gurkha Sappers, but also by the wider Nepalese and Indian community in Maidstone.
County Cllr Ian Chittenden (Lib Dem), who attended the stakeholder meeting, said: “There are many factors that make Invicta Park Barracks a very challenging proposition for any development, let alone for a massive 1,300 new homes and a school (which is what is proposed).
“The SPD will have to address all of the sensitivities associated with this historic, wildlife-rich parkland site.
“It is hoped an SPD can be completed in the next six months to lock-in long-term protection for the historic and natural wonders of this barracks – whatever the future holds for local government in Kent.”
He said the Invicta steering group were clear that the Hindu Temple would need to remain, either untouched or replaced by a new building on the site.
Cllr Chittenden said that given the constraints, he could not see the barracks accommodating 1300 homes.
He said: “Probably around 800 would be a better number.”
There is also some doubt as to whether the MoD will stick to the original closure plan.
It was announced in 2016, before the start of the wars in Ukraine or Gaza.
In a world looking increasingly less safe, the new Labour government has already added £3billion to the defence budget and announced its intention to increase defence spending from 2% of the country’s gross domestic product to 2.5%.
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