26 / 04 / 21
SOHL has received a statement from Stuart Jeffrey, the Green Party’s local election nominee for the North Downs ward, who is strongly opposed to MBC’s Heathland Garden Community.
You can read his statement below:
“The building of 4000 houses on Lenham Heath will be disastrous for the countryside and the people living all around the area. The climate and ecological emergency that the world faces can only be tackled by localising our economies, localising food production and reducing travel. 4000 houses on farmland is the opposite of this. We need farmland for food, not unaffordable houses. The impact on our roads, particularly the A20 and the road from the A20 across the Downs through villages like Hollingbourne, will be extensive. The Great Danes and Leeds roundabouts will grind to a halt and the additional air pollution from traffic will harm local people.
It is not just traffic though. Wastewater will pollute the Stour which rises in Lenham Heath. The Stour is an important habitat and its nature reserve on the other side of Canterbury will be severely damaged. And climate change will impact too. Built areas are significantly hotter than countryside, there will be very dry summers and more flooding in the winter. The last thing that the area needs are to be built on.
Lenham Heath is next to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Do we really want to look out from the North Downs Way on to a new town? 4000 houses on Lenham Heath will also be just the start. It will never stop at 4000, developers will see the new ‘garden village’ as ripe for further development.”