‘Disappointing’: CPRE Kent responds to Highsted Park call-in by government

‘This is not the right place for the scale of development being proposed’

CPRE Kent and its supporters have waited a long time for the two planning applications comprising the wider Highsted Park proposals, north and south of the A2 close to Sittingbourne, to be reported to Swale Borough Council’s planning committee.

Last week we were delighted to find out that the recommendation was to be one of refusal. CPRE Kent wholeheartedly endorsed the view to refuse by virtue of the sprawling development not being allocated in the council’s Local Plan.

The proposed development would have significant landscape and visual impacts, consume several villages, damage local heritage assets and, with the loss of best and most versatile agricultural land, along with trees and hedgerows, ruin the beautiful and quintessential character of the rural landscape.

While we acknowledge there is a national housing crisis (though this development only makes provision for about 4.2 per cent affordable homes), the beautiful Highsted Valley is not the right place for the scale of development being proposed.

We stand with the local parish councils, community groups and individuals who have campaigned long and hard to convince the borough council that these planning applications should be refused.

To have the decision for Highsted Park snatched from Swale borough councillors just hours before last night’s (Thursday) planning committee meeting is disappointing. We share the disappointment that the decision will be taken out of the hands of the local community to be determined by Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.