A planning application for a huge 2,000 development of a ‘new town’ on land at Westgate and Garlinge has been submitted to Thanet council.
Millwood designer Homes wants to create up to 2000 homes, including up to 100 Extra Care units, a care home, two form entry primary school, health centre and shops, cafes and restaurants on 237 acres which includes agricultural land.
The site can be broken into three main parcels, divided by the existing roads that divide the site. The first parcel is on the west of Minster Road. The second parcel lies between Minster Road and Garlinge High Street. The third parcel extends east of Garlinge High Street.
A full application has been submitted for 120 homes earmarked as a “new Dent-De-Lion neighbourhood,” with views of the Dent-De-Lion Gatehouse and fronting on to a village green with a ‘feature pond.’ This site will be accessed from Garlinge High Street / Dent-de-Lion Road.
It will have 1 and 2 bedroom apartments, and 2,3,4 and 5 bedroom houses including 1,2 and 3 bedroom bungalows. There will be a proportion of affordable homes.
The development has been named The Gallops and derives its name from the history of the site which was once a Victorian racecourse.
Planning documents say: “This first phase of development provides an opportunity to create a visually striking gateway and set a high standard for the future phases of development. The Gallops, Land at Westgate and Garlinge, has been designed comprehensively, demonstrating the potential to deliver up to 2000 new homes in a sustainable manner, with no fundamental constraints on development that cannot be appropriately mitigated.”
The boundary of the build includes arable farmland and one existing building associated with the former orchard which is proposed to be demolished.
Millwood say the new town will include green spaces, play areas and walking and cycle routes
Areas are split into The Gateway, Streets and Courtyards, The Greenway and Framed Avenue.
Millwood says it is planning to include wildflower meadows and bug and bee hotels as well as areas for foraging, an orchard and a heritage trail. There will also be natural play and sensory areas.
Plan amendments have been made based on feedback from community meetings and exhibitions, including one held last November.
The proposed site is larger than that suggested in Thanet’s adopted Local Plan, which is a blueprint for housing, development and infrastructure on the isle up until 2031.
Westgate was originally allocated 1,000 homes but a vote in 2018 to retain Manston airport as aviation-use only instead of mixed-use development meant 2,500 proposed homes had to be reallocated to new sites.
The reallocation included 1,000 homes for greenfield sites either side of Minster Road in Westgate, bringing the draft plan total for the town to 2,000.
Millwood Designer Homes is involved with a similar plan for development in Birchington.
The documents can be viewed on Thanet council’s planning page, reference OL/TH/20/1400
Why don’t you just leave the land alone stop building properties there’s enough empty properties that you could turn into homes for people
The conversion of empty properties en masse by property developers is never going to happen, because it costs far too much and is a much more complicated and time-consuming process than buying land which has not already been built on.
And of course its this Tory government that has dictated to every local authority that they have to build thousands more dwellings! If there is any moaning about greenfield land being used, think about the derelict airport at Manston, that applied to build 4,000 houses, light industrial units, Medical/Leasure Centres, and schools! That will be a wasted opportunity if the American Hedge fund company reopens it, and fly in dirty old cargo planes over Ramsgate harbour, two an hour! There’s still time to donate to the Crowd Funding to stop this madness, so donate for the Judicial Review!
More agricultural land to go under concrete. Surely we should use brownfield sites rather than loose greenfield
Not enough profit for developers in using brownfield sites. The council won’t be happy until there is no greenfields and trees left in Thanet. We are under fire by the local authority that should be working for Thanet not developers. It’s all about the income from council taxes.
I wish people would stop blaming the council. It’s the government which they should be blaming.
You cannot beat the system of lies and corruption. These decisions have already been made. The hand shakes and the back handers already completed. The swelling numbers of immegrants have to live somewhere. Come on have a heart..
Housing that xould have gone on Manston a brownfield site not on greenfield land. So well done all you airport supporters !!
Absolutely.
I agree, Manston should have been housing. Well done you airport nuts.
You are suffering from pilockism paul, seek help, there is no cure, but it may be managed with specialist help!
Sorry to say that developers will get their own way, planning laws being what they are and I guarantee the community aspects will get watered down as the developer pleased poverty!!
1.Who is going to buy them? People can’t really afford to buy now.
2.What does affordable mean?
3.We really need more rented accommodation for local people.
4.The new builds at the end of Brooke Av.in Garlinge has already destroyed a perfect habitat for wildlife.
5.Why do we actually need this?
6.Do any other Councils or London boroughs have interests in this?
All very pertinent questions to ask. I doubt any of this will be priced to allow locals to buy.
Prime grade 1 agricultural land up for grabs by greedy developers with nice little backhanders for our corrupt top management at TDC. Shame they don’t make use of the 2600 odd empty properties we have in Thanet which they should have prioritised.
Just how will we feed ourselves when we have no land left to grow our own vegetables…..why we’ll just import them of course…..from China! Duh!!!!
Plenty of brownfield at the defunct airport. However, due to the aviation obsessions of various parties, here we are with the greenbelt being ravaged.
Houses are coming. Airport or no airport.
Stone Hill Park also had GP and school provisions in their plan.
And heritage aviation.
All rejected by the fudge fudge fudge of the local plan led by TDC.
Well here you go folks. This is the outcome.
An airport isn’t ideal, but it has stopped Cliffsend, Manston, Acol and Minster from gradually blurring into one big mass. Would gladly support scrapping any airport plans to convert it into a (real) park, but that ain’t gonna happen.
It could have been turned into a retail park with houses like the have in Brighton offering a call centre for a large company as the do there with Amex and Lloyds which would have brought in more jobs. Brighton’s get over 4000 jobs from call centres. I worked in one for 24 years and lived nearby. It works !
There’s an empty call centre at Westwood called Saga.
I give it 10-15 years before we basically have “Thanet City”, with all the current villages blurring together. Very, very sad.
Is there anything to say this land was compulsory purchased? I think you’ll find whoever owns this land will be happy to sell it as leaving the EU will mean no more subsidies, not having houses built on manston is not the reason our greenfield sites will be built on, they’ll all be built on eventually.
“…one existing building associated with the former orchard which is proposed to be demolished”… Does anyone know which building this is? I quickly looked at the planning site but there’s a LOT of lengthy documents to go through!
Why do we need more housing? Why build on good agricultural land? And who will staff medical centres and care homes when we have too few doctors and NHS workers already? Surely we cant let developers decide our future like this yet again?
Unfortunately while we have corrupt Council officers, corrupt or week and incompetent councillors Thanet will be destroyed. The peoples one day of democracy is not enough.
“Why do we need housing?”, says someone who believes we should welcome illegal immigrants with open arms.
We need housing for the 300 people on the housing list. Will we get the Social housing we are entitled to ?Who is going to buy these houses ? Not local people. Can our roads take all this extra traffic. The Government is responsible for the new housing regulations. The Minister can always overrule the Planning Department Who answer to no one
If you are talking corruption, start with the Government and then M Ps.
No land has been compulsory purchased all willingly sold
..mainly by Quex Estates.
Thanet,the dormitory isle.
Other major greenfield developments coming, by bye asparagus fields hello pollution.
Thanet has to accept houses to meet National need, but it could so easily have been met using the Manston brownfield site.
– To all those parochial cargo hub supporters/lobbyists- you are responsible for this building on greenfield sites & further blighting this beautiful area.
– To all those that have sat on the fence or reminisced about the good old days of the airport & thought it won’t affect you, here it is. The chickens are coming home to roost. Perhaps you’ll actually now understand the implications of the pointless airport vs houses argument.
“ Westgate was originally allocated 1,000 homes but a vote in 2018 to retain Manston airport as aviation-use only instead of mixed-use development meant 2,500 proposed homes had to be reallocated to new sites.”
Why does Thanet have “to accept houses to meet National need”? There are lots of far more sparsely populated areas that could cope with it better (the Lydd/Romney area for example).
Matt is not putting forward an argument but stating a fact.
Locals have been fughting this for years. Protests fell on deaf ears. The developers of the Salmedtone Grange massacare are already back tracking on the number of affordable homes, where is the wideninf and improvements to Nash Lane which i recall was promised. The garling town will be utterly destroyed. The artists vision will not be anything like what we will end up with. Perhaps that map ought to show the thousands of homes rather than lots of subtle greens.
Although I currently live in Westgate (and will be moving elsewhere next year), I lived in Garlinge from 1987-1990. So it’s a place I have fond memories of. Ironically, back then it had all the shops locals needed without driving anywhere, including 3 grocery stores, 2 greengrocers (I worked in one of them – it’s Barbara’s Baps), a butchers, bakers, a big hardware/electrical store, and more… as well as a bank, clothes shop and musical instruments store just a stroll away in Westbrook. I then moved away for 9 years, and when I revisited in 1999 I was shocked to see almost everything gone! So that’s when the real rot started.
Back to now: will they save the old school/village hall for community use, or still sell it off as housing?
All local Councils have a legal obligation to meet their part of the national housing need quota. It is why they are all required to have a local plan. TDC failed to even agree a local plan for so long the government stepped in. Then they cobbled together an amended plan of the one they’d finally proposed to change Manston back to aviation only. As a consequence they’ll be more likely to be compelled to say yes to plans on the greenbelt cos they decided to protect a defunct airstrip so…
In that case, the law needs to be changed. A no-brainer.
It’s the same the whole country wide I now live in a little village in Cambridge , planning permission was rejected a few years back as the land was classed as a nature reserve and liable to flood and the road to it was not suitable for more traffic also the Doctors and other services were not able to take on more clients , suddenly the council are having a closed meeting about building twice as many houses on the same brown field and we cannot attend
Peter- a pointless comment saying “the law needs to be changed.”
There is a national housing shortage, with public and cross-party political support on the need for this to be addressed with more residential properties. While renovating old properties and recycling parts of unused shops may help, this approach can also be much more expensive than mass-developments and doesn’t permit parking… ‘everyone‘ aspires to have a car and a house with a garden (not a flat).
So, the National need is distributed to a local requirement to provide housing, meaning allocation of land. NIMBY-ism doesn’t cut it… but this situation could have been avoided without local MPs and TDC ineptitude and perceived corruption with Freudman.
Then the new housing has to be redistributed more evenly around the country – or at least where there are more employment opportunities. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were plans to build vast factories on the Manston site, but of course there are no such plans (and as the UK has seem to it’s cost during the pandemic, relying on retail and hospitality doesn’t work in times of crisis – but that’s another discussion/argument!).
*seen* (not seem!)
We have to build houses.
Why not use manston ? It will never be an airport again because of its location, lack of infrastructure, and a massive down turn in aviation which will take years to get over. And that’s just a few reasons !
On the other hand ‘IF’ manston does take of we will need to build alot more houses to accommodate the skilled staff that will be needed to operate an airport. After all they arent 26,000 skilled airport workers in thanet.
It was a done deal once the road improvement was approved , all part of the scheme. Thanet has lots of relatively cheap land. Millwood homes are one of the better builders and uptil now have always produced good quality schemes. So hopefully they’ll attract wealthier buyers and help offset the “ london overflow” sink estates being created around westwood cross.
You never know it may be quite a boost to thanet if it can attract people with money to spend and so encourage new shops and services acrossthe isle.
A country that is accepting 300,000 migrants a year is as an inevitable consequence going to need very roughly another 75,000 houses a year . Quite how people say the former is a good thing but get upset about the latter is both beyond me and nonsense.
As for the greenfield / brownfield debate there’s room for both but large quality schemes need large areas of land so greenfielf is the answer.
Manston represents just about the isles only opportunity to create quality well paid employment for the longterm it provides a pretty unique infrastructure asset, it should be afforded the chance to develop accordingly. Whether or not it survives is another matter.
It will ruin our lovely Garlinge village. So upsetting. Why can’t they find other places. Its not fair to destroy farmland and a peaceful little village.
I’ve lived in thanet all my life some 44 years, but have also toured the country visiting many towns and cities, we live in a world whereby our lifestyles have considerably changed, and with the current pandemic its highlighted many issues. Our Global population is increasing, and people need somewhere to SLEEP, EAT, and RELAX, but above all people need to LIVE. ….. BUT we all have to co-exist, and whether poor, middle class or rich, we all have to realise change is inevitable, an AIRPORT is NEEDED, MORE HOMES are NEEDED …. BUT each town and village NEEDS their own identity, NEW BUILDS need to be having GREY WATER (recycled shower and washing machine water to flush our toilets, and water our gardens) SOLAR PANELS (To be more electricity friendly and making us money), and more thought off builds. MAYBE a NEW TOWN could be created, with Doctors, Schools, Shops, and Homes, but this would be better with a MORE DEFINED GREEN LAND between the new TOWN and existing villages and towns!!!!
26,000 Manston workers? Try 200.
Even Tony had admitted automation means v few jobs.
Even the government inspectors agreed the jobs claims were wildly exaggerated.
Even RSP had to admit their original banners plastering fake numbers around were wrong.
Try made up. Fake.
To fool the locals into believing a cargo hub is an employment mecca.
It isn’t.
Have a look in the inspection outcome. Manston cargo hub will kill more jobs than it creates.
Oh, and put vastly increased housing numbers onto the green belt.
Where are all the cars in the artists impression?Saw similar in the impression for Birchington,architects couldnt answer same question!Still it looks verty idyllic with man sitting next to pond!!!These people should get down from their ivory towers and walk around some estates.
Migrants have to have somewhere to live and learn our ways.
This was bound to come up. “Blame the migrants!” It’s always a popular slogan when a problem appears and people don’t want to really address the issues.
We need more houses because people like me are living longer , and intend to keep living as long as possible!
So I won’t , hopefully, die in my ’50s, ’60s and ’70s as my parents and in-laws did. So I won’t be leaving my house to future generations for another few decades yet(if I am lucky).
So the next generations will need somewhere else to live.
Not only that, but many more people now separate and divorce, so that a family that once required just one home will then divide and need TWO homes!
And while we are on the subject, don’t knock immigrants. Part of my grand plan to survive a lot longer is bound to involve increasing medical help and , eventually, social care in my own home or in a Care Home. So young immigrants will be needed even MORE in future unless any readers are planning to help wipe my sorry bottom in the next few years! No, I didn’t think so!
So the sooner we start building on Manston the better. And the sooner we start building the homes we need. too.
That will include purpose-built small homes for the frail and elderly, small flats for older people who want to down-size and sell their family home to younger people,(like me , fairly soon), Council homes for sensible rents, flats for single people of all descriptions following divorce etc.
In fact, the need ISN’T for huge estates of three and four bed detached houses at all! But THEY are the kind of houses that developers will build if we don’t stop them.
So let’s have more of the right kind of homes and more immigrants!
Your right, so where are all the churches and mosques ?
CofE/Catholics congregation numbers fall, year on year. The mosques? Try the old Church behind the old post office on cecil sq.
Well done you idiot airport supporters. All this ‘airport not housing’ bollocks you’ve been spouting, I hope you’re really pleased with yourselves.
Manston Airport was never designated to be a housing estate. Mrs Ann Golag purchased the airport for £1 plus debts with the intention of running it as an airport. This is well documented.
‘R’ did you never see SHP’s plans? They owned Manston and had great plans for housing, lesisure park, doctor’s surgery, schools, even retaining part of the runway for historic aircraft. Unfortunately for Thanet the stupid airport supporters blocked this plan.
The airport supporters have only themselves to blame for this, it is all their fault and the 2 stupid mp’s that Thanet have. This will not be the only planning application.
SHP had great plans for the defunct airport site but oh no, Gale and his ” we need an airport” bunch knew better now the truth is hitting home and they dont like it one bit. Despite all the lies about jobs etc they still believe it TF and his band of merry men!
‘Where have all the green fields gone? Long time ago, gone to houses every one, when will you Tories learn? When will you ever learn?’
When will you anti’s wake up and smell the coffee. Get over the fact that Manston Airport, was an airport, before you all were born. It will still be an airport, long after you have all gone. Don’t use Manston as some sort of excuse as to why you oppose development on your doorstep. This would have happened anyway. Get over the fact that Manston will re-open.
It hasn’t been an airport for years. It’s just a disused brownfield site at the moment, though of course it’ll be a lorry park soon.
I see not onr councillor has engaged hete.no promotion of a petition just silence.
Who would blame any odd developer to front an application when they can get a later reduction in affordable dwellings and sub 90% of the land then apply for double the number of units its so obviously deviant
Perhaps a statement from Mr Linninton as the Tenant farmer on his position in all of this ?