05 / 03 / 23
We continue to work closely with the parish council to pool our expertise and resources to robustly defend the village and its precious green space.
The initial findings from the Planning Inspector on the Local Plan Review have now been published and you can read the full report on the parish council website.
While the Inspector has given Maidstone Borough Council clearance to proceed with Stage two, there are some significant issues which need resolving to find the plan overall ‘sound’.
Although the Inspector agreed there was some merit to the proposal to develop significant housing in what was described as ‘the broad Lenham location’, he found the specific policy through which MBC proposed to deliver this was ‘not sound’. For it to be deemed sound, this required MBC to carry out major pieces of work in agreement with third parties, such as Network Rail, which will not be easy to address.
MBC has a lot of work to do to resolve these issues of soundness highlighted by the Inspector which are not just in relation to Heathlands. It’s likely that any resolutions proposed by MBC will be subject to a six-week consultation and we will keep you updated.
With the local elections in May, any decisions will be deferred in the six weeks leading up (known as Purdah). And who knows, the balance of control within the borough may shift.
We will continue to work with the parish council to scrutinise any revised proposals and take action to fight the Council’s proposal.
This is our last chance to fight Heathlands from being an allocation site in the Local Plan. We now need to move fast to ensure that we have the funds needed to legally challenge the Local Plan – which could cost around £50,000.
We’ve set up a ‘fighting fund’ and will be organising some fundraising events in the coming weeks with more details to follow.
Please help us by donating what you can to our ‘fighting fund’.
Thank you for your continued support.