By Dave Mitchelmore

As reported on Labour Hub back in August last year, local activists in West Kent have maintained their determination to defeat an attempt by Croudace Homes to build 66 homes on Green Belt/agricultural land in the village of Wateringbury, near Maidstone.

On Wednesday 23^rd July, Protect Our Medway Valley, (POMV) in alliance with district and parish councillors, saw the planning committee of Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council vote 10-3 to reject the planning application for a second time. The rejection was based primarily on the landscape harm that the development would inflict on the Valley; but also cited was the worsening of the already appalling air quality at the village crossroads that would result. This success was achieved despite consistent advice from council officers that the development would not conflict with existing environmental safeguards and indeed be beneficial to the area.

While campaigners and councillors opposed to this development were overjoyed at the decision, we understand that Croudace can appeal this decision to the Planning Inspectorate. However POMV remain steadfast in their aim to prevent the development going ahead.

To achieve this victory POMV have been meeting on a regular basis and have organised an increasingly professional campaign within the village and beyond. With generous local support via a crowdfunding initiative we have commissioned two exhaustive reports to emphasise the landscape harm that would ensue should this proposal be successful. In addition to submitting these reports, we received legal advice that focused on the conflict between these proposals and existing policies that seeks to safeguard the quality of the natural environment. The detail given in Reason 1 for rejection acknowledged the harm and irreversible loss of the countryside setting if the development were approved.

The main difficulty the campaign has experienced has been the relationship with a local Tory councillor, who has sought to intimidate members of POMV and question the financial propriety of our activities. We have been able to refute such allegations and not succumb to attempts to undermine our work. Hopefully such obstructive behaviour has ceased and we will continue to strive to work alongside local councillors, irrespective of political and personal differences.

While we wait to see if Croudace appeal this decision, we hope that Andy Burnam will turn his attention to the chaotic approach to housing that the Starmer government inherited and made no serious attempt to alleviate. Rough sleeping needs addressing without doubt but headline-grabbing initiatives are no substitute for a root and branch approach to the current housing crisis.

Dave Mitchelmore is Convenor of Protect Our Medway Valley and a resident of Wateringbury. 

Image: Wateringbury. https://www.flickr.com/photos/adambowie/36653935146/in/photostream/ Author: Adam Bowie. Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed