Highsted Park: we make our statement to public inquiry at Swale House

CPRE Kent have spoken at the public inquiry into the scheme for 8,400 properties to be built at Highsted Park, near Sittingbourne.

The Quinn Estates plans entail 7,150 homes stretching from west of Teynham south to the M2, where there would be a new junction, and a separate but linked scheme for 1,250 homes north of the A2 at Teynham, which would enable the completion of the eastern section of the Sittingbourne Northern Relief Road to Bapchild.

The scheme was called in by Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in November just hours before Swale Borough Council’s planning committee was due to decide upon it.

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 quintessential character of the rural landscape.

CPRE Kent are standing with the local parish councils, community groups and individuals who have made such a strong case that the planning applications should be refused.

We do not object in principle to housing; rather, we campaign for the right housing – and in particular housing that is affordable – in the right place.

For the inquiry, which began on Tuesday, March 11, at Swale House in Sittingbourne, we raised the following specific issues:

• Loss of BMV (best and most versatile agricultural land) and food security
• Failure to provide sufficient affordable housing
• Our endorsement of the landscape position taken by Swale Borough Council and the Kent Downs National Landscape Unit, the landscape impact sitting within CPRE’s wider aims of countryside protection. The requirement to seek to further the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the area will need to be addressed in considering the merits of the proposed development. We note that everyone (including the applicant) agrees that the proposal does not conserve or enhance the Kent Downs
• Impact on tranquillity and dark skies (for nature and our own sleeping patterns)

The inquiry is expected to last 12 weeks.

• To read a summary of the CPRE Kent statement, click here
• To read the full verbal statement, click here
• For more on Highsted Park, click here