Conservatives seek to mislead the public about Garden Communities

In today’s Sittingbourne News Extra the local Conservative party have claimed, that in order to meet government housing targets, the council is supporting the development of a garden community between Bapchild and Kent Science Park.

This is a brazen attempt to mislead the public ahead of the elections and is simply not true.

A council spokesman said:

“No decision has been made about whether garden communities are the way forward for the next Local Plan. So far, the Local Plan Panel has agreed to continue exploring the approach as a potential alternative to meet the housing targets set by the Government.”

So just to be clear the council has not yet even decided whether or not to adopt the garden community approach or continue with the existing method of identifying and selecting appropriate sites based on their individual merits.

At no point has the council made any decision what-so-ever on singling out a particular scheme, and currently there are four potential options on the table, if indeed the council does decide to go down that route.

It’s bad enough that a significant number of Conservative candidates have openly declared support for a garden community between Bapchild and Kent Science Park, which means that if elected they can no longer be part of any decision making process on either garden communities or any specific proposals or future planning applications for a garden community between Bapchild and Kent Science Park, as they already have a predetermined interest.

However, to try and mislead members of the public into thinking that this is a done deal supported by Swale Borough Council is outrageous and deceitful.

This further brings into question the Conservative’s close relationship with Quinn Estates who are the only party with a proposal for a garden community between Bapchild and Kent Science Park.

Andy Hudson
Sittingbourne.Me

 

The forthcoming local elections are a Once in a Lifetime Opportunity (a well used phrase in Quinn Estates press releases) for the people of Swale to put an end to the constant stream of lies and deceit that comes from SBC.

Even without the Bapchild to Kent Warehouse Park (M2) Garden Community, not forgetting the still to be built car park apartments in Sittingbourne, Quinn Estates are looking to build around 7,000 Once in a Lifetime Opportunity properties on greenfield sites around Kent (with a variety of the usual sweetners to sway opinion in their favour).

If the people of Swale vote the same council into office this May then they deserve what they get or not as the case may be - even more traffic chaos: yes; doctors: no.

All parties lie to get votes. We the people are not stupid and know exactly what MP's are like ;)