Tonight (September 4) the first of two council planning meetings will discuss the development of 1,600 homes, a primary school, shops, care home, expansion of Birchington medical centre and a community park on farmland at Birchington.
The development is earmarked to take place on land off the Canterbury Road and was first proposed by Ptarmigan Land and Millwood Designer Homes in 2019 with a planning application submitted in December 2020.
Millwood Designer Homes is no longer part of the scheme. The joint applicants are now Ptarmigan Birchington Ltd, Places for People Homes Ltd, landowners The Master Fellows and Scholars of the College of Saint John The Evangelist in the University of Cambridge and The Birchington Pool Trust.
The applicant and owner for the area of land lying adjacent to Park Lane is Places for People and the applicant for the remainder of the site is Ptarmigan (which is owned by St John’s College).
Amendments include a reduction in homes from 1,650 to 1,600 and introduce additional green areas to preserve archaeological potential. There are also changes to the development boundary line.
The plan includes a new strategic link road between Minnis Road and Manston Road, alterations to existing junctions and new access arrangements from Minnis Road, Park Lane, Canterbury Road and Manston Road/Acol Hill and a new recreational and leisure shared-use link between Minnis Road and Park Lane.
The proposals include a network of new cycle and pedestrian routes linking Quex, the coast and the wider countryside; 36 play spaces with 6 equipped; seasonal wetland basins; Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and discharge via infiltration plus swales and bioretention systems; woodland with information boards; edible corridor and community orchard and a heritage pocket park.
Some 1,816 letters of objection have been received by the council.
Among those objecting is Birchington Parish Council which says the planning the committee is “being asked to agree parts of a jigsaw, but without knowing what the full picture looks like.”
In a statement due to be read out to planning committee members the parish council says: “Birchington Parish Council acknowledges that the site is allocated in Thanet Local Plan 2020, establishing the principle of development. However, the footprint diverges significantly, and we also have serious concerns about making decisions in advance of understanding the costs of the Link Road and knock-on effect to the community benefits delivered through the site.
“As an Outline application, we consider it disingenuous to seek to gain approval for those parts of the parameter plans relating to design (density, buildings heights etc.). Not only do these conflict with one or more policies of the Local Plan, Birchington Neighbourhood Plan, Thanet Transport Strategy and aspects of the NPPF, but they are pre-emptive of an approved masterplan, as required under Local Plan policy SP16.
“We consider that the committee is being asked to agree parts of a jigsaw, but without knowing what the full picture looks like.
“Our objections to this application remain as submitted and set out in the agenda papers. The application contains major flaws. If this application were accepted in its entirety, it would:
- Extend the footprint of the allocated site, contrary to Planning Inspectorate rulings, destroy more prime agricultural land and potentially increase new home numbers by about 130.
- Breach multiple Local Plan and Neighbourhood Plan policies and would be contrary to adopted Birchington Design Codes and Guidelines.
- Create uncertainty and risk in relation to costs and knock-on impact on community benefits, due to the interdependence between this development and the significant unknowns about delivery of 2,000 homes in Westgate and funding of the North Thanet Link Road.
- Destroy characteristic approaches to the west of Birchington and views to the sea and Quex.
- Create inadequate road junctions based on out of date (2031) traffic projections.
- Allow development in the absence of a masterplan for the whole site. (SP16)
- Give blanket permission for uncharacteristically tall buildings of up to 13m (11+/- 2m)
- Exceed the policy ceiling of 35dph and place 72% of dwellings on plots in excess.
- Route 22,000 vehicle per day on NTLR through the centre of the highest density housing.
- Place the majority of open and green space away from housing to the west of the NTLR, a very busy road with few safe crossing points.
- Locate a 400-place primary school adjacent to a major road junction projected to carry more than 40,000 vehicles per day.
- Not meet Local Plan Inspectors requirement to provide for expansion of medical services at the Birchington Medical Centre.
- Predetermine planning decisions about the closure and redirection of public footpath TM37
- Fail to provide sufficient Section 106 funded appropriate off-site developments in Birchington to mitigate the harm caused by this development.
“In short, this is a significant development that would have significant adverse impacts on our community, creating a housing estate with few day-to-day amenities and minimal sustainable travel connections to existing amenities and services. An estate of mainly tall, high-density homes dominated by the high traffic volumes of the NTLR and served by inadequately designed road junctions.
“(Birchington) Council believe these proposals are not sustainable and would cause harm to the existing community. There should be no decision about access, extents or parameter plans until there is an agreed masterplan for the whole site and clarity about strategic development in Westgate and delivery of the North Thanet Link Road.”
District councillors for Birchington will also be speaking against the proposals.
Financial viability
Developer documents state the end date for the build would be December 2036. A financial viability submission says there are four options where between 4% and 22.5% of affordable housing could be delivered dependent on the amount of funding required for developer contributions and whether Kent County Council receives government funding towards major road network proposals – so reducing the amount payable by the developer.
A heads of terms agreement quotes developer contributions for the major road network as £5,712,760 plus 23% affordable housing, if KCC also gains government funding or £19,271,361 towards the North Thanet Link and 15.5% affordable housing if it does not.
Demonstrations
Demonstrations will take place outside Thanet council offices in Margate tonight and tomorrow when the second session is due to be held.
The protests, which will include members from Birchington and Westgate and Garlinge action groups, are due to take place from 6pm. The planning meeting begins at 7pm.
Councillors have been advised to defer and delegate to officers for approval subject to safeguarding conditions.
This should be rejected out of hand. There is not organic demand within Thanet for this amount of new builds.
The land should all be compulsorily by The Council under a covenant that it will be let as farmland in perpetuity to guarantee food supply.
Yes. It will never happen because TDC’s, Ian Livingstone and Ingrid Brown do not recognise restrictive covenants or in perperpetuity!
The homes aren’t intended for the natural population growth of Thanet, the vast majority will be for those coming to the area.
The nation has high levels of inward migration and those people need to live somewhere.
Your right, and I am all for it! What is needed is hundreds of new young DFL’s to stop all the inbreeding in Thanet, and their eyes growing too close together. Bring it on!
Hahaha, love it!
In a way it’s good that Gale got re-elected so he can still preside over this total mess in his backyard. All caused by his dogmatic support of Manston.
Indeed so.
Once Upon a Time Thanet had a draft Local Plan that had a much smaller total for the number of houses Thanet had to build.
But this draft was thrown out, not least because an organisation “Birchington Against the Local Plan”, in cahoots with UKIP and Tory Councillors, sank it without trace, largely because it didn’t reserve Manston for aviation use only.
Chickens. … roost. ..
You incessantly bang on about Birchington, yet whenever there’s a headline about yet another failed business in Ramsgate you are strangely silent. Very weird for someone who supposedly lives in and loves Ramsgate, ditto your friends Phyl and Rees.
Some people won’t be happy until all of S E England is concreted over!
Concreted over.Not quite.Thanet has a high percentage of urban terrain at just under 16%,but that also includes parks,gardens etc.However road space an additional car parking are necessary.
Elsewhere in Kent the % is under 7%.the most developed part of Kent is Dartford at over 25% , so no the south east is not covered in concrete, but I agree it appears that way.
They will like people for places in Birchington, as other parts of Thanet has suffered the stewardship of housing.
Build on Manston. The largest brownfield site in Kent.
I’m pretty sure that’s what will happen.
I can’t see any other use for it.
Farmland? At the very least, it could become a giant Thanet Earth.
I couldn’t care less about centralised Corporate Communist building targets.
All the old communities in this country grew because their sites had usable resources – agricultural land, minerals, timber, hydrocarbons, fish, natural harbours, etc. That is natural and organic.
Those communities that grew up around the manmade globalist Triangular Trade are now pretty much obsolete and irrelevant. Hence the massive money pit that is the North and the Midlands. Where there are vast numbers of people and minimal wealth generating work. Relocating office jobs from high property value London has not resolved their underlying anachronistic nature.
Destroying OUR prime agricultural land for the sake of benefit claimants here or elsewhere is plain stupid!
What is ” the manmade globalist Triangular Trade”?
A triangle is a musical instrument, often played by the least-talented member of youth orchestras.
“Triangular Trade” refers to the situation that existed up to the middle of the 19th Century.
The UK traded with western Africa: in return for our manufactured goods, we were supplied with slaves.
These were shipped over the Atlantic to the West Indies, where they were put to work on the plantations. The stuff produced on the plantations was then shipped back to the UK.
There you have the three sides of the trade triangle.
The roads (A28 included) simply cannot handle another possible 1600 cars dumping onto it at rush hour. Try getting into Birchington at 5pm and see how far up the hill you get. Stick a roundabout with 2 new roads in the mix and forget getting anywhere! Couple that with the fact that Birchington medical centre cant even cope properly at the moment and you are faced with not only infrastructure probs but health support issues as well. Go back to the damn drawing board and try and put something together that works!!
Surely a targeted campaign against Cambridge University as the landowner is needed as I’m sure they will not like the bad publicity!
Possibly .. but they are linked to the church and they already want to build…