A message to the people of Gravesham...

Stop the Gravesham Green Belt Grab

If you care about the quality of life of your family, it is important that you make your voice heard in the Local Plan consultation currently taking place.
If you don’t know what to say or how to respond, then you could use this standard wording, so long as you include your name and address, and send it to: 

Planning Consultation, Gravesham Borough Council, Civic Centre, Windmill Street, Gravesend DA12 1AG

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Gravesham Local Plan Consultation

I strongly object to the building of 3,790 houses on 21 sites in Meopham, Higham, Istead Rise and Sole Street for the following reasons:

• Even longer waiting times for doctor and dental appointments
  Longer hospital waiting lists
• The roads linking the rural areas could not take the increased traffic
• There are no safe walking and cycling routes between rural communities, and residents are reliant on a limited bus service or their own vehicles
• The A227 and A226 are already congested – car journeys will take even longer
• There will be massive impact on rural lanes caused by the Lower Thames Crossing and the Paramount Theme Park at Swanscombe, increasing traffic on the already congested A2
• The impact on traffic by these huge projects must be considered
• An extensive build will put more pressure on our schools, which could result in children being allocated spaces in schools they neither want to attend nor are local
• Trains will be overcrowded
• Impact on broadband services – often weak in the rural areas
• Rural development will cause air, noise and light pollution
• There is already a severe water shortage in the South East
• Agricultural land should be protected for food production
• Huge impact on wildlife, which now, more than ever, needs protecting
• Our villages will become merged and their unique identities lost

Yours faithfully,

Signed:     
Name:     
Address:     
Date:

• More information on how to object and details of the proposals can be found at www.stopthegreenbeltgrab.co.uk

• For more on this story, see here

Thursday, December 10, 2020

• 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