Thanet District Council has today (March 25) launched a ‘Call for Sites’ in which developers, landowners and members of the public are invited to put forward potential sites for development.
The authority is looking for potential sites for housing, self/custom building, Gypsy and Traveller sites, employment space, retail, nature conservation and biodiversity offset sites and open/green spaces.
After sites are identified they are then assessed against the needs in Thanet’s Local Plan review.
Potential sites for development can be submitted online between 10am today (March 25) and 5pm on Friday 21 May. Invitations to participate have been sent to a wide audience including parish councils, landowners, developers, agents, businesses and some local interest groups.
Bob Porter, Director of Housing and Planning at Thanet District Council said: “The Call for Sites is an early step in the update of our Local Plan. It will inform options for future development and the provision of other important facilities in Thanet, up to 2040.
“We would encourage the community, especially landowners and developers, to put forward potential sites and to be clear about what development could take place in the future. Please also ensure that the online questionnaire is answered in full as we want to bring forward sites that support the wider objectives and timescales of our Local Plan strategy.”
Submitted sites will be assessed against a number of criteria including suitability, availability and viability for the purpose proposed as set out in the online questionnaire. The form also contains a map drawing tool for people to identify their site and upload supporting documentation.
The Thanet Local Plan was adopted on 9 July 2020. It is a blueprint for development in the district up to 2031. The plan sets out how much development is needed to support the future population and economy. Government guidelines currently suggest a build of 17,140 isle homes by 2031, this is inclusive of homes already built.
The Local Plan includes modifications recommended in the Inspectors’ Report, sets out policies and proposals that will be used to guide investment and decisions on development and regeneration. It details where homes, jobs, community facilities, shops and infrastructure will be.
Thanet council says the Local Plan will provide a higher level of protection for land identified as unsuitable for development.
A review is being undertaken to look at areas including the implications of climate change; the provisions of the plan in relation to Manston Airport; the implications of the Local Housing Need Methodology on housing requirements for and the provision of Gypsy & Traveller sites.
Thanet councillors voted to move forward with the Draft Local Plan in July 2018 after it was initially voted down in January of that year. The January vote failed after 35 councillors rejected it due to revisions that included axing the aviation-use only designation at the Manston airport site, which was shut down in 2014
The plan includes the re-allocation of 2,500 homes to greenfield sites in Westgate, Birchington, Minster, Margate and Westwood after the allocation was removed from the Manston airport site to retain aviation use. This was to be reviewed in light of the government granting a development order but the order has since been quashed and a fresh decision letter -either granting or denying the order – needs to be written.
Campaign groups have been voicing their objections to large developments on farmland in Westgate, Garlinge and Birchington.
What an excellent photograph of Thanet! Manston airport can be seen in the right hand corner, which shows how close it is to Ramsgate Town! This is a superb site, ripe for development, which would bring new wealth and jobs to Thanet, instead of air and noise pollution which would destroy Ramsgate with low flying dirty old cargo planes, flying in over the Harbour at just 300 meters high, two or more an hour!
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Ideal gypsies site is on the Goodwin sands there’s loads of scrap metal there.
We need local work spaces for the move to home working as not everyone can turn their home into their work – or want to. Spaces local to where we live, guaranteed personal use, rented at reasonable rate paid by the employer , with facilities . Saga building ideal . Should be owned by TDC
It’s all wrong! We don’t need to be building all those extra thousands of homes on the isle. Overcrowding and traffic jams already exist in Thanet, why ask for more of that?
We should be looking at nature and producing woodlands, forests and parks for people to enjoy, not cramming in more people to this little corner of the County creating more misery. Enough is enough TDC, Thanet is fast being ruined under your leadership.
Well said. Residents are sick of more and more houses being built in an Isle at breaking point. Ask the muppets who build the houses and clowns who approve them to try driving through Westwood cross and surrounding areas @ 2:30pm onwards and weekends just to sit in traffic for over 30 minutes to move 1 mile. Where are the jobs coming from for the new tenants? QEQM waiting times exceed 4 hours already, no available dentists, limited opportunities to sign up to a doctors surgery, we’re already the pothole capital of England, more houses shall improve that won’t they! We’ve had enough!
You said exactly what I was going to say. Hear hear!
The decision to build 17000 new homes in Thanet has been made by the government. The decision that 2500 of them cannot be placed on the old abandoned airfield but must now go on the fast-disappearing greenfield spaces is, of course, a purely locally decided self-inflicted wound.
Yes, it’s the government not TDC which says that Thanet must have 17000+ new homes. And as Tony Uden says, it’s TDC who decided that a certain large local brownfield site should be reserved for aviation.
If you’re not happy with these decisions, there are elections coming up.
It’s too late Martha. The airport is being built, regardless of what you or any other delusional person thinks.
If anything, come the local elections, when Tories wipe out Labour, the process of making it an airport once again, will be sped up.
You are just a supreme troll aren’t you , Y Bocs? Wel cer i’r diawl ati. Marva yw fy enw.
Oh, is “the airport” being built now? I have managed to miss that bit of news. Please publish a link to it so that we “delusional persons” can find out for ourselves.
Kathy Bailes- I am fed up with this cowardly pseudonymous contributor “The Box” having a go at me. He or she has been doing it for months. It is quite disturbing to think that this may be someone I actually know. Can you please let me know who it is, so that if I do know them, I can either avoid them or tell them what I think of them? Thanks.
The Box suffers from pilockism Marva, its incurable but it can be managed, they should seek help!
When it comes to being delusional, it was, I think, Tony Freudmann, director of RiverOak, that anticipated the use of electric barges as part if Manston’s cargo handling logistics.
With vision like that, what could possibly go wrong.
The giant brownfield site at Manston is available. With free sink hole.
Roger Gale prefers to lobby for housing to go on prime farmland around Birchington.
With plans to move QEQM Services TO CANTERBURY OR ASHFORD.
How will people get there.
More housing more people (what sort) More roads average 2cars per house.
Crowded roads. More poll ution. More people ill with respiratory complaints.
More rubbish in our neighborhood.NO JOBS.
ENPTY INDUSTRIAL PREMISES.But nevermind TDC getting more tax (that depends on how many people will be on benefits NO JOBS.
OF course there will be building work (where will the workers come from.)
If you’re that concerned about increasing traffic the lobby your MPs for improvements in public transport and a reduction in bus and train fares.
then lobby, not the lobby
stinking diesel buses should be removed from our roads not encouraged.
Knock down Cliftonville central ward and start again. Flatten it and rebuild it, but not making it the dangerous mess it currently is.
Box, there’s no airport being built currently. The Secretary of State is now reflecting on his Grade F for Fail homework DCO outcome that was quashed by a judge recently.
The only thing going on up there is Tony F looking for unicorns.
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I’m not sure what putting up a link to an application for a CAA licence is intended to do.
It certainly isn’t proof that the DCO will eventually be granted, nor that even if it were, the airport would ever make a success.
A great shame that the short sited council scuppered Stonehill Park’s comprehensive plans for mixed development.
What does all the blue writing mean?
Its madness, there isn’t enough room. You cant just take everything.
It is this Tory government’s policy that’s dictated 17000 houses for Thanet.
It was UKIP, Tory and Democratic Independent Councillors (DICs) who scuppered a local plan that would have lead to a better allocation of housing.
You get what you voted for
You lot who keep banging on about building on the airport are brain dead. Do you not realise that once the airport site has gone along with the chance of any sizeable future employment. The council / government will then just build even more houses on our fields . Ffs think about it . It’s simple they can’t build anywhere down here as everything will come to a stop .roads will be grid locked hospital will be bursting .doctors and dentists non existent .
“Sizeable future employment” at an airport in Thanet? Why would anyone want to bring their business there when there are far more conveniently placed airports already in existence?
There’s room for hundreds of flats and houses at the ex-airport site, as well as space for industry and even for open,green areas. And if TDC hadn’t been so bloody-minded they could have enabled SHP to get on with putting them there years ago.
Anyone who supports the airport is supporting more jobs ending than it would create. This isn’t the view of an art loving coffee drinking DFL, this is the conclusion of the government appointment inspectors.
These are the facts. No electric barges or unicorns were involved.
Is “art-loving” an insult in Thanet? The word “love” is rather an exaggeration in many cases(not just apropos art).
Strange ideas about Londoners are very often expressed in these comments. It’s as if some people can’t imagine London as a real place, whose inhabitants have a full range of personalities and interests.