The developer proposing to build 450 homes on agricultural land off Shottendane Road in Margate has lodged an appeal after Thanet council refused planning permission for the scheme.
The highly contentious planning proposal was rejected in July – again – after being brought to Thanet council’s planning committee for a third time.
The proposal by Gladman Developments Ltd was sent back to the drawing board by councillors in April with the developer told the 10% affordable housing offer was inadequate. Thanet council’s Local Plan policy stipulates 30% affordable housing unless proved that this figure is unviable.
In June the application was rejected yet again by Thanet council’s planning committee due to an “insulting” affordable housing offer of 15%, flood risk, harm to wildlife and agricultural land and concerns at the inability to provide required health care for new residents.
Gladman Developments Ltd, propose to build the homes, a new distributor link road connecting Hartsdown Road, Shottendane Road and Manston Road, two new roundabouts, public children’s play areas and recreational routes.
The latest plan offered 68 properties as affordable housing on an 80% affordable rent and 20% shared ownership mix with approximately £4.9million in contributions to community and highways infrastructure.
Councillors rejected the development on grounds that the harm of not providing 30% affordable housing outweighed the benefits.
However, they also raised issues including the lack of biodiversity surveys and mitigation, wildlife, the loss of farmland and the issue of greatly increased pressure on access to healthcare services.
However, officers said there were “no cogent reasons” in planning policy to refuse on any basis other than the lack of affordable housing and said this still left the council at risk of costs via an appeal.
Cllr Mike Garner disagreed, saying there was solid evidence of issues over flooding, wildlife and healthcare.
Gladman Developments have now appealed to the Secretary of State against the refusal.
The notice says any owners or tenants of the land can make representations by writing to The Planning Inspectorate, PO Box 2606, Bristol, BS1 9AY within 21 days. However, it is dated August 6 with a postmark of August 9 meaning that time slot has now expired.
For once TDC has made a good decision and I am sure supported by most, if not all, residents of Thanet. Let’s just hope it isn’t overturned at government level – that they look at all considerations and not purely their aim of getting houses built throughout the country. Sir Roger and Craig – please show your support for Thanet and your constituents by doing everything you can to demonstrate to the Secretary of State that TDCs decision should be upheld.
It is 100% Roger and Craig’s fault that we’re in this mess in the first place. They both pushed hard and put an extraordinary amount of political pressure on our councillors to AVOID building on a 742 acre brownfield site and push the housing onto this farmland instead – and other agricultural land across Westgate, Birchington etc. At the time, council Officers warned that this would put us in exactly the situation we are now in. But the majority of councillors, slavishly following Gale’s lead, ignored these warnings. Thanks to our councillors – Tories and Kippers – bowing to that pressure from Gale and Mackinlay and voting to APPROVE these sites for housing in the Local Plan, we are now in the situation where developers are claiming TDC is, in effect, trying to reverse its own poor decision and move the goalposts. Essentially, TDC has given an invitation for developers to build on farmland and, when they try and do so, it’s saying “no, we didn’t really mean it”. How do you think this will play out? Spoiler alert … TDC will lose the appeal and we will all get stuck with massive costs. All thanks to Gale and Mackinlay and their ridiculous obsession with a cargo airport no-one wants or needs so we can fly in green beans from Kenya rather than grown them ourselves.
It is documented that this is down to the actions of Craig Mackinlay, Sir Roger Gale, TDC Tory and UKIP Councillors.
Please take the time to watch this video of Craig Mackinlay telling how this all happened – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvVlQt5SSok
All Thanet residents will continue to pay a heavy price for their actions.
I am a born/bred Margatonian and YES we do want our famous Airport to reopen, miss seeing all the plans overhead.
It’s only DFL newbies who don’t understand our passion for the airport !!!
Yes Lunda, us DFLs newbies dont really care about you lot of toothless born and bred Margantonians (this is ramsgate, not margate, by the way). We are buying all the houses, we are changing the town for the better, and you soon will not be able to afford even a latte here. If you want an airport, move to east midlands, they are busy.
But what are your reasons for wanting an airport? Is it just nostalgia that makes people have a “passion for the airport”? Why would anybody want the noise and pollution which aviation produces?
Well said.
I hope that they have stated that this is good farming land and the roads are susseptical to flooding too
Roads likely to flood can be remedied and the loss of farmland on a site that is allocated for housing in the Local Plan mean that, sadly, the appeal will be probably be upheld.
Whether or not the Planning Inspector agree with the councillors over the reduction in the element of affordable housing will be interesting. If the appeal is upheld the council taxpayers will have to foot the bill as costs will most likely be awarded.
The time to fight the allocation of housing on this site was a few years ago when the Local Plan was out for consultation, not once it is approved and operational.
Yes Jenny but Labour was in Control when the Daft Plan was originally nodded through and similarly in December 2020 when the latest Draft( which is no different as it features the KCC Inner Circuit = the driving force behind 20000 houses) was meekly nodded through by the latest Labour ” Administration”.
Public Consultation should start soon and needs positive action to make sure that local politicians do what’s required
The developers know it’s worth the cost of an appeal to the government. After all, enough house building firms make huge donations to Tory Party coffers. They MUST be getting something back for the money, or else why hand it over!
Tory government policy is “Build, build, build” but they don’t worry how much the houses cost. Which means that , round here, the developers pitch their prices at the London market. Not at a price that locals can afford.
The same houses, costing the same amount to build in, say, Northumberland, or East Lancashire , would be sold for half of the price of the same house in East Kent. So the builders are coining it. And to hell with the environment, farm production, or the broken dreams of local people who might want to own their own home. Let alone those who might hope to get a Council house!!
Affordable houses HA HA what local person can afford all these new houses, all this is doing is providing homes for people outside of the area which in turn is inflating the cost of renting for locals check out rents !!!! out of this world now and my son with his family are desperately trying to move as landlord wants to sell but when the rents are over a £1000 who can save a deposit for buying
MP’S were right to oppose this ,If planning permission is granted it will be criminal there are lots of empty properties that should be developed before any more house’s are built
But councils can’t afford to buy and repair empty properties, and housing developers don’t want to.
If the Local Plan, courtesy of our Tory and UKIP councillors, has this land designated for housing, then the appeal will win, and TDC (and its tax-payers) will be saddled with huge costs.
I will do my calculations and get back to you (on the saddle mate)
Hopefully the officers judgement is correct. Some of the reasons seem rather nimby ish.
The site is going to be housing, plenty of green&brown field sites available or already land banked in thanet.
Land is cheap in thanet, its a developers dream area.
Refugees will need some where to live, Others will disagree.
Why mentioning refugees at all? Why being racist? It’s disgusting.
Keep going back till you get the answer you wont. Well i hope the Secretary of State says no too. Everyone else has with good reason.
All about profits for developers and backhanders to local authorities this nonsense is. Tory greed with their developer mates. It doesn’t matter about flooding once they are built as it won’t be their problem then. It doesn’t matter about the crap road system in Thanet as once they have built the crappy standards houses they are off with full wallets. It doesn’t matter about our health and not being able to get a doctor or hospital appointment because, you guessed it, they are off !! Just keep cramming overdevelopments into Thanet until we are choked to death. Well if the airport is given consent then we will be anyway.
Greed, Greed and more greed, whoever is getting there pockets lined ought to feel ashamed of themselves.
All you have to do is take a look around Wingham, Preston, Ash, The old Salvatory base
etc,etc all of these are 3,4 and 5 bedroom houses, not for the likes of people who grew up in these villages more for people with plenty of cash to use as holiday homes!!!
Flooding can not be remidied at Shottendane, tried and failed over the years. With rising water levels this will always flood. Greed before common sense and local knowledge. Hope they lose and are made to pay double costs for both sides for there greed
Room for 5,000 houses at Manston but no, let’s build on the green belt instead. Everyone knew this would happen and now it is coming home to roost. Thank the MPs for Thanet North and South, UKIP , Tory and TIC leaderships at TDC if you’re looking for accountability and all councillors who continue to support the 24/7 cargo hub. Houses are coming, you can’t support a cargo hub hoping they won’t. The TDC local plan is a case study of incompetence and pet projects.
Oh the irony.
The “Birchington against the Local Plan” group which campaigned so vigorously to throw out any plan not reserving Manston for aviation only, has morphed into the “Birchington against just about everything, especially housing development in Birchington”.
Karma.
5000 houses at Manston would bring potentialy another 7000 cars onto thanets roads. Maybe more not many people would want to walk to westwood. Unless they were to build a whole new shopping centre to cater for those who lived in that area. As for shottendane this is all about money. Developers build modern day ghettos. We’re you sit in a square or a garden and wave to 20 neighbours.
Lbby local MPs for improvements (big improvements) in public transport.
I lived in a flat backing on to a large public garden for years. It was fine.
Won’t these new homes be too expensive for anyone who doesn’t have a high income?
Lobby
I think you find lobbying MPs is a waste of time. They probably have shares in these company’s. And what with the current crazy price increase on building materials. This will putanother 5 to 10 k on the asking price. We now live in an age we’re prices are out of control. And it’s all ways the pooresh get screwed over.
I was referring to lobbying for better public transport. Not about lobbying for less new housing in Thanet.
Had TDC managed to have an agreed plan some years ago, the target wouldn’t be so high.
TDC only has itself to blame and now folks are waking up to the impact on the greenbelt because of the same TDC support for a cargo hub then it’s a bit of a pickle isn’t it.
Very little point lobbying either MP. Roger Gale is the self confessed MP spokesperson for Riveroak, and Craig Mackinlay owns an airline (that he forgot to declare).