Faversham & Mid Kent does not have the infrastructure to cope with the 20,000+ houses planned over the next few years.
Recent water outages have shown that we don't have enough water to support this number of new homes. The planned Broad Oak reservoir is many years away from completion.
Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council recently received a letter from South East Water warning that they would only be able to supply water to a third of the new homes the Government requires in the borough.
So how on earth does the Government think we can have over 110,000 more homes in Kent and Medway - including 20,000 more in Faversham and Mid Kent?
I challenged the Minister, Miatta Fahnbulleh MP, in Parliament about the lack of water in Kent for all these planned homes, and about why London's housing target has been reduced while ours has been increased - even though London hasn't suffered repeated water shortages.
I also wrote to the Secretary of State for Housing urging him to reduce our housing targets, but the Government replied assuring me that they have plans for water resilience. I am not satisfied with that response and have gone back requesting further details. You can read these letters below.
I don't need to tell you that many of our roads are already often gridlocked - made worse by Operation Brock each school holiday. On top of this, the Government has just dropped the improvements planned for Brenley Corner; though thankfully they are still planning to proceed with the Bluebell Hill upgrade.
It is simply not good enough to increase our population by the twice the size of Faversham without proper investment in our water supply and roads to cope with these huge increases.
The major developments in the pipeline are:
- Lenham Heath - 5,000 houses
- Lidsing Garden Village - 2,000 houses
- Winterbourne Fields - 1,815 houses
- Duchy development, Faversham - 2,500 houses
- Highsted Park - 8,400 houses
All of this comes after the Government reduced London's housebuilding targets while simultaneously increasing targets for counties in the South East, including Kent.
Huge solar farms on agricultural land
These 20,000+ houses do not include the two huge solar farms: Graveney and Pitstock near Rodmersham, nor the many smaller developments of 50 plus houses popping up all over the place.
Last summer I signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a clear ban on large solar developments on our most productive farmland and for the Government to prioritise solar panels on buildings and brownfield sites instead.
Even more Gypsy and Traveller sites planned for Maidstone
And if all this was not enough the Government is also requiring Maidstone Council to provide even more Gypsy and Traveller sites. That's despite already having the highest number of Gypsy and Traveller pitches in the country. I took this up with Maidstone before Christmas and I am now taking the fight to Ministers.
Prime agricultural land should be used for farming
I have made my views clear to Maidstone Borough Council, Swale Borough Council and the Government that high quality agricultural land should be used for farming. To help protect this valuable land against the Government's development plans I proposed a new law to protect England’s very best farmland.
The scale of development planned
Faversham and Mid Kent is due to take nearly 1 in 5 of the total houses planned for Kent and Medway. Yet we are only 1 of 18 Parliamentary constituencies in the area - so this is far more than our fair share. Put another way Faversham and Mid Kent’s population is less than 5% of Kent and Medway’s but we are expected to take 18% of the total houses planned.
London has one of the lowest densities of any European city with the infrastructure and jobs to support more people. It is not right that the Government reduced London’s housing numbers which means mainly building on brownfield sites and increased ours which means building on fields and orchards.
From my calculations London is taking less than half of the planned houses for London and the South East, and of the total number of houses planned for the South East - Kent and Medway is taking a whopping 42%. That’s simply wrong and I am calling on the Government to think again.
Also according to my calculations if you were to add together the house building targets for Kent and London - Kent is taking over a quarter of that figure - which means the Government is expecting the Garden of England to take far more of its fair share of new houses.
The South East of England is expected to take just under a fifth (17%) of England’s new houses - which means the South East is picking up London’s slack.
We need sensible-sized developments and a focus on cities and towns
I am not against sensible-sized developments in or adjacent to towns, or small, well-designed developments in or around villages. I know we need to build homes, and young people are staying on living with parents for longer and longer because of the cost of housing.
The problem is the massive scale of building planned on top of the many thousands of houses already built in this area in recent years – along with the failure of the planning system to consider the impact of all these new developments in combination.
At the heart of the Garden of England, we are historically an agricultural area, we do not have the infrastructure to support this level of growth. Development here means building on green fields and farmland when it should be focussed on brownfield sites, cities, and towns, where there are jobs, public transport, and infrastructure to support it.
The bottom line is that Faversham and Mid Kent’s infrastructure cannot cope with the scale of development planned. The Government must think again.
