Join Sunday’s Day of Action against overdevelopment in Kent

How much more development can Kent take? With the county subjected to increasingly crazy levels of housebuilding, a protest has been planned for people sick of the ongoing destruction of their natural environment.

The Day of Action on Sunday 28 November will involve groups across Kent marching, walking or just plain meeting up to demonstrate their anger and upset over the loss of so much countryside to an incessant barrage of housebuilding schemes.

The Save Kent’s Green Spaces protest was put together by Dave Lovell, who had previously been involved with the Save Capel group battling plans by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council for 2,800 new houses at Tudeley and another 1,500 at East Capel.

“We are essentially an umbrella group and hope to guide others in their lawful protest. We had also always intended that individuals who did not have a campaign to align to could get involved and we are now opening up to them, as well as others who might not be able to make it on the day,” said Mr Lovell.

“We’re trying to ratchet up the political pressure and get Boris Johnson to put his words on protecting green fields into practice. With the National Planning Policy Framework a toothless machine, we would like to see it become advantageous for housebuilding to be on brownfield land, including the repurposing of existing buildings, and disadvantageous for it to be targeted at greenfield land.”

Coalition of groups

At the time of writing, 29 groups across Kent had signed up for the Day of Action. Among them are:

• Save our Heathlands, who will be walking along the North Downs from Lenham Cross to Cherry Downs
• Sittingbourne’s Rural Protection Group
• Westgate and Garlinge Action Group in Thanet
• Farms, Fields and Fresh Air, Faversham, who will be taking a poignant route from a food hall to the fields being put up for development by Prince Charles

Show your support

Supporters who join the walks or simply do their own thing are encouraged to take photographs of threatened sites and post them on Facebook or Twitter using the hashtag #SaveKentsGreenSpaces or email them, with their details, to savekentsgreenspaces@gmail.com.

Mr Lovell said:

“From the contributions and messages we’ve already had, we’ve estimated that more than 15,300 acres are set to be lost to the proposed housing developments that we know of – but there are far more out there.

We’re not saying the figure represents scientific analysis, even though it’s been checked by a statistician, but it’s a fair estimate. I am also not aware of any form of cumulative impact assessment that might be in place for what seems a huge loss of green space, agricultural land and wildlife habitat.

If the day is successful – and with so many groups taking part we are confident it will be – we hope that other counties will follow suit.”

To learn more or to take part in the Day of Action, whether as a part of an organised group or as an individual, please visit the Save Kent’s Green Spaces Facebook page or email savekentsgreenspaces@gmail.com.