Anger and frustration as Government circumvents unanimous rejection of Highsted Park proposals
Councillors are absolutely furious with the government for
calling in the Highsted Park planning applications just 3 hours before the
planning committee was due to sit down and debate the applications.
Swale Council now has a matter of weeks before Christmas to
put its case forward to the government outlining its reasons for refusal. Then in
the early part of the new year each of the applications will be put before a
Government Inspector and the inspectors recommendations will be forwarded to the
Secretary of State Angela Rayner who will make the final decision.
Highsted Park is a hugely controversial scheme for 8,400
houses, equivalent to the number of houses in Faversham and hundreds of acres
of industrial parks the size of Eurolink. Technically its actually two applications
one for 1,250 houses north of the A2 and one for 7,150 houses south of the A2.
The scheme had been recommended for refusal by the council’s planning
department, however process dictated that the meeting last Thursday evening went
ahead as planned, although the council’s decision would not be binding. Both applications
were then unanimously rejected by members of the planning committee.
Cllr Alastair Gould (Green Party), who is chair of the committee developing the
new Local Plan asks,
“What is the point of having a planning committee if we
can’t even get to discuss the most controversial planning application on our
patch, which has cross-party opposition? If this development is given the
green light, it will make a mockery of the local planning system and the
development of the Local Plan”.
Cllr Julien Speed (Conservative)
“I am still reeling from the events of Thursday. It is unusual for a planning
application to be ‘Called In’ for determination like this. It normally
only happens if it conflicts with national policies in important ways, or could
have significant effects beyond the immediate locality. It is not clear on what
basis these applications were called in, nor who drew the matter to the
attention of central government.”
Cllr Mike Baldock (Swale Independents Alliance)
“Again we see the Government hand in hand with developers bypassing local
democracy and local people. This threat to our countryside has been hanging
over our heads for 20 years and then mere hours before the Council are set to
discuss it, the government calls it in!”
“Despite those 20 years and the many months the application
has been with Swale Borough Council, many significant documents and details
have not been provided to enable the Council to make a judgement on the
application. Nor have Highways England been able to support it.”
“If the Secretary of state now seeks to award this application with permission
in the absence of any proof of supposed benefits or considers the huge harms
outweigh these perceived benefits it will demonstrate just what an undemocratic
shamble our Planning system is, and how little the powers that be actually care
about local residents and communities.”
Cllr Rich Lehmann (Green Party)
“This will be a disaster for local communities and infrastructure. What
happened to Labour’s promises of devolution and more powers for local
government? There have been over 700 objections to this planning application,
including from National Highways, and an agreement locally that the proposals
should not go ahead. Where is local democracy in this decision?”
The strategic case for the Southern Relief Road and motorway junction has not been established.
The big selling point from the applicant’s viewpoint is the provision of major transport infrastructure, albeit it comes at a cost, in terms of reducing other potential benefits, most notably the amount of affordable housing.
This scheme would essentially connect the existing Northern Relief Road with the M2 via a final section of road to the A2 and then a new Sittingbourne Southern Relief Road (SSRR) and new M2 motorway junction know as Junction 5A.
For those that are new to this 20-year old saga, I would just like to point out that the original case as presented by the then owners of the Kent Science Park for the new motorway junction and Southern Relief Road was as an alternative to upgrading junction 5.
Now that the M2 Jct 5 upgrade is all but complete and by all accounts running very efficiently, the entire justification for the SSRR and Jct 5A has all but evaporated.
National Highways generally only consider new motorway junctions in relatively exceptional circumstances, if it could be proven that there is sufficient demand to justify such a proposal.
Where is that traffic demand going to come from, there just isn’t enough demand locally to warrant this. But what if you were to artificially manufacture that demand by creating an exceptionally large development proposal, an order of magnitude larger than anything ever previously developed in Swale.
Quinn Estates and the Kent Science Park have relentlessly pursued a new motorway junction and associated SSRR, but have repeatedly failed to justify the proposition, and this time is no exception.
The planning officer told the committee that “the southern application which includes the Southern Relief Road between the M2 and the A2 relies on the Northern Relief Road in the set location. Without the Northern Relief Road, traffic queues in the Southern Relief Road would be reliant on the A2 leading to unacceptable highway impacts.”
“In terms of modelling, KCC Highways raised concerns that proposal fails to provide sufficient information to allow a proper understanding of highway impacts. There was also concern that at some junctions’ capacity would be exceeded and, in some cases, necessary mitigation is either not proposed or the mitigation was not tested to show that it would be successful. The local authority also advised that the development has the potential to draw traffic through rural lanes and villages beyond the application and in many cases the traffic model did not take this into account.”
“Nation Highways raised concerns in relation to highway modelling saying as it stands the proposal fails to provide appropriate modelling sufficient to demonstrate that the development would not result in unacceptable transport and highway impacts.”
“Nation Highways also of the view that the strategic case for the Southern Relief Road and its associated junction with the M2 has yet to be evidenced.”
The Northern Relief Road Winners and Losers
With regards to the completion of the Northern Relief Road the
report shows that it would lead to increased traffic on Swale Way, the northern
section of the A249 at the Grovehurst junction and on the A2 east of Bapchild,
including at Teynham and towards Faversham.
The report also indicates some potential benefits in traffic flows around
Sittingbourne Town Centre but acknowledges that the completion of the Northern
Relief Road encourages traffic to stay on local roads, rather than use the
strategic road network routes of the A249 and M2.
Bruce Bamber, Transport Consultant acting on behalf of four
parish councils including Teynham said “I do not believe the west of Teynham developments
to be acceptable in transport terms. The development is predicted to generate
around 5,000 additional trips a day on the A2 through Teynham, contrary to
misleading information supplied by the applicant, but accepted by the highway
authority, this will cause the A2 to exceed its theoretical capacity and will
lead to severe congestion.”
Cllr Julien Speed told the committee “Traffic along London
Road in Teynham is already up 24% since 2019. It’s up 37% if the M2 is closed,
which has happened 32 times in the past year.”
“The proposals fail to consider induced traffic and the poor
safety record on the Lower Road, and fail to acknowledge, assess or mitigate
severe congestion on the A2 through Teynham.”
Heritage and Landscape impacts
Outside of the pure transport concerns, the roads would significantly impact the landscape, have environmental impacts on air quality and cause noise pollution. I don’t think many people realise what the Norther Relief Road might look like as it towers above the East Hall and the Spring Acres developments to cross the railway line before ploughing through the new Spring Acres country park/open space and Tonge Country Park. The elevated position of the road will make it visible for miles around.
On the northern application the planning officer said “It would have and urbanising and harmful impact to the countryside, have an adverse impact to the rural economy. Tonge Country Park would be harmed.”
On the southern application the report to members says “The Sittingbourne Southern Relief Road SSRR would have significant impacts on a protected area, being the Kent Downs National Landscape as well as the loss of irreplaceable habitats, landscape character and visual impacts as well as impacts to heritage assets.”
In addition to this, experts found a number of shortcomings with the environmental statement provided, notably that the submission is not compliant with the regulations and therefore permission cannot be granted without resolving these issues.
On the southern application Natural England advised that the mitigation measures do not adequately mitigate the adverse impacts of the development.
The council says “There is an objection to the proposals in relation to the harm to the landscape, visual impacts, the integrity of protected habitat sites and heritage assets”
“The development would have an urbanising impact, harmful to the intrinsic amenity value of the countryside.”
It was also noteworthy that the applications do not comply with the habitat regulations either.
Speaking against the scheme
Cllr Monique Bonney
“The southern application will be an unmitigated disaster, except for the wealthy landowners and the developer. It will have a ruinous impact on my ward and the adjacent area. There are a clear set of objections from statutory consultees, more than 10 parish councils, Maidstone Borough Council, the Kent Downs and highways. The local need is for affordable rented accommodation, not luxury 5-bedroom executive housing.”
Cllr Sarah Stephen
“Woodstock ward is directly adjacent to the proposed development and have a devastating impact to the quality of life for my residents who currently enjoy the serenity and beauty of the countryside that would be lost forever, turned into a massive urban industrial landscape which is totally unsustainable for the area.”
Cllr Julien Speed
“There’s a democratic process by which local authorities determine where the housing and infrastructure goes. This developer does not have the right to circumvent the local plan process with a speculative application that, if approved, would pre-determine the Borough’s entire spatial strategy. This scheme has been in the making for many years now, but too many fundamental issues remain unaddressed - and some are incapable of ever being addressed.”
Cllr Mike Baldock
“I think I am starting to understand why they are not providing the information needed, I’m not sure they understand it themselves because we have just been told they will be meeting the 10% affordable housing target, but this is not an urban extension its open countryside requiring 40% affordable housing.”
“The whole (southern) application relies on the delivery of this road and they still can’t provide the information needed to make a strategic assessment. That I think sums up this whole application, inadequate and ill-thought out.”
Paul Forshaw, Resident
“The water supply and wastewater infrastructure is already at breaking point and cannot cope with the addition of such a vast housing development. The area is critical to suppling water because of its important chalk aquifer including the highly protected dry chalk valleys.”
“It is widely recognised that the physical and service level infrastructure in the area is already stretched beyond capacity, much to the detriment of existing residents. A development on the scale proposed, irrespective of any planning conditions placed upon new development, will exacerbate a fundamental issue in the area.”
Alastair Stewart, Lynsted with Kingsdown PC
“The South-East is one of the most water stressed areas in the UK, but subject to a high and growing population. Soth East Water has experienced a lack of capacity to produce drinking water to match demand during prolonged period of hot weather. Southern Water does not have capacity to treat significant rises of wastewater.”
“It will be plainly unwise for a development to go ahead where existing and future infrastructure resources will not be available to provide both drinking and wastewater.”
Brian Clarke, Bredgar PC
“This region known for its highest-grade agricultural land has been historically farmed as orchards since the 16th century. The farming practices here are conducted by a scientifically skilled workforce whose activities have shaped the rural character of Swale. The current agricultural use of this land maximises value for Swale and the country.”
Stuart Crossen, Cerda Planning for Bapchild PC
“It is essential that any application of this scale comes with all the evidence required to inform and minimise harmful impacts of development. In this instance the application submission falls significantly short of its aspiration because it fails to consider all of the impacts so cannot mitigate for them. For those impacts that it does identify, it does not provide the mitigation required to justify approval of the scheme.”
Tony Cross, Milsted PC
“The design does not conform with the recommendations of the Kent Downs management plan, including and I quote the special character and qualities of the area which enhances the rural feel and traditional settlement patterns. In essence we lose our villages and therefore we lose our identity.”
Graham Haggar, Rodmersham PC
“This application will have a catastrophic impact on our parish and that of our neighbouring parishes. There will be harm to the heritage assets and the rural economy, there will be harm to the rural lanes from additional rat-running. The scheme has little thought for pedestrians using public rights of way or footpaths. It will negatively impact walkers, cyclists and other road users. It does not meet any sustainable transport criteria. It will severely impact residents ability to safely and freely access open countryside and transition the national cycle route one.”
Speaking in favour of the scheme
Considerably outnumbered by those objecting to the proposals, only three speakers spoke in support of the two applications. These were Ben Geering, development director at Quinn Estates, Maurice Dunk, Chairman of Sittingbourne Football Club who are sponsored by Quinn Estates and Locate in Kent who have on their board the Kent Housing and Development Group whose membership includes Quinn Estates.
Maurice Dunk, Chairman of Sittingbourne Football Club
“the scheme will take us to the big time”
Catherine Igoe, Locate in Kent told the committee
“local businesses have clearly voiced their support for the proposals with more than 70 businesses writing in support.”
However, the report to committee makes it abundantly clear that the Council has already identified land elsewhere where industrial and other employment space can be provided to meet the Borough’s needs. This proposal is therefore unnecessary for the delivery of employment space during the plan period.
Andy Hudson
Sittingbourne.Me
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