February was CPRE Kent’s Free Will Month, run in conjunction with Whitehead Monckton, and we are pleased to continue this service to the end of the year.
While it is on hold for now, we are able to put people on a waiting list on a first-come-first-served basis. Places are strictly limited. Details are presented below:

Why making a will is important

Making a will is good for you and your loved ones. It provides peace of mind knowing that your wishes will be carried out, and the people you love taken care of.  

Making a will can be good for the countryside too

By leaving a gift to CPRE Kent, The Countryside Charity, you will be joining thousands of people who want to stand up for our countryside. The countryside is ours and our children’s heritage and by leaving a gift to CPRE Kent you will help to fund successful campaigns, protecting the countryside into the future. With no funding other than from our members and supporters your gift is all the more valuable. CPRE Kent is the only charity that campaigns to protect the wider countryside throughout Kent. This means not limiting our support to purely ancient woodland, nature/wildlife reserves, Green Belts or AONBs or a specific species of flora or fauna, but all these important areas and more, including those parts of the countryside afforded no statutory protection.

In memoriam

Your gift in their memory, will go towards protecting our countryside into the future. You could celebrate your loved one’s life by setting up a fund with Just Giving, CAF Bank or by requesting gifts be placed in a simple donation box in lieu of flowers and making a one-off donation in your loved one’s memory.

What better way can there be to remember a loved one than by giving a gift to CPRE Kent, The Countryside Charity?

How a gift could help us do so much

You can join thousands of people who care and help CPRE Kent protect our precious and fragile countryside and biodiversity into the future for generations to come. CPRE Kent has teamed up with Whitehead Monckton to offer our supporters the chance to have a simple will written for free.
Here are some of the ways a gift in your will could help us protect the countryside and the biodiversity within it, by:

• Taking part in examinations
• Commenting on planning applications
• Providing advice and support
• Paying for and providing expertise in environmental law, heritage, landscape, air quality, transport water and ecology etc.
• Organising litter picks and collecting evidence
• Raising awareness by attending events and visiting schools
• Supporting local communities, towns and villages.

This offer is strictly limited. To find out more please call Vicky on 01233 714540 in confidence, or email Vicky.ellis@cprekent.org.uk.

Offer limited to 10 free wills only on a first come first served basis to anyone 50 years old and over for one simple will, or £100 towards a pair of mirror wills. Other solicitors are available for will writing but not in conjunction with this offer. It is not a condition of the Free Will Month to leave CPRE Kent any gift; the choice is personal to you.

It’s easy to make a will

You can download and fill in our Will Planner and/or call Vicky on 01233 714540 in confidence for a chat. Please stipulate if for the Free Will Month.

If making a will independently and you would like to leave CPRE Kent a gift, then please include the following information:

CPRE Kent or The Kent Branch of The Campaign to Protect Rural England

Charity number 1092012

You are welcome to download our will planner to help you.

• A number of important documents have yet to emerge. For example, a rigorous transport plan and a finalised air-quality assessment. The latter is critical given that allocations at Teynham will feed extra traffic into AQMAs.
• There seems to be no coherent plan for infrastructure delivery – a key component of the plan given the allocations being proposed near the already crowded Junction 7.
• There seems to have been little or no cooperation with neighbouring boroughs or even parish councils within Swale itself.

The removal of a second consultation might have been understandable if this final version of the plan were similar to that being talked about at the beginning of the consultation process. It is, however, radically different in the following ways:

• There has been a major shift in the balance of housing allocations, away from the west of the borough over to the east, especially around the historic town of Faversham. This is a move that raises many concerns.
• A new large allocation, with accompanying A2 bypass, has appeared around Teynham and Lynsted, to which we are objecting.
• Housing allocations in the AONB around Neames Forstal that were judged “unsuitable” by the council’s own officers have now appeared as part of the housing numbers.
• Most of the housing allocations being proposed are on greenfield sites, many of them on Grade 1 agricultural land – a point to which we are strongly objecting.

Concerns about the rush to submit the plan

The haste with which the plan is being prepared is especially worrying given the concentration of housing in Faversham. If the town is to take a large amount of new housing, it is imperative that the policies concerning the area are carefully worked out to preserve, as far as possible, the unique nature of the town. The rush to submit the plan is likely to prove detrimental.

As Swale does not have a five-year land housing supply, it is open to speculative development proposals, many of which would run counter to the ideas contained in the current plan. Some are already appearing. This is a common situation, and one that, doubtless, is a reason behind Swale’s haste.

Our overriding fear, however, is that this emphasis on haste is ultimately going to prove counterproductive. This is because it is our view that the plan, in its current form, is unlikely to pass independent examination. We are urging Swale to listen to and act upon the comments being made about the plan and to return the plan to the council with appropriate modifications before submitting it to the Secretary of State.

Essentially, this means treating the current consultation not as the final one but as the ‘lost’ second consultation.

The consultation ends on Friday 30 April and we strongly urge residents to make their opinions known if they have not already done so.

Further information

• Read more on the Swale Local Plan
• Read CPRE Kent’s detailed comments on the plan
• View the council’s consultation document