NOT PART OF THE CONSULTED VISION FOR THE AREA
Around Deal, Walmer, Sholden, Mill Hill, and in Great Mongeham we’ve been seeing more and more developments that are not on the Local Plan; typically, where a developer has bought a couple of fields from a local farmer/landowner at a much higher price than if it were agricultural land.
The resulting housing developments can provide “windfall” ways for a Council of meeting the huge housing need, but as it’s not part of the Local Plan there has been no discussion previously with local people about whether it is the right place or not.
We all know there is a need for affordable housing that helps our young people get on the housing ladder but most of these developments are for much larger houses which are, of course, at the more expensive end of the market.
In an ideal world, you might expect that in their initial assessment of planning applications, Planning Officers would filter out those that are not abiding by the appropriate rules and criteria, but resources in local authorities are now very limited following 14 consecutive years of budget cuts.
So, whilst some issues do cause planning applications to be stopped by Officers, a great many more are not, and you must be vigilant in order to ensure objections are submitted that convince the Planning Committee not to give permission.
You have probably reached this point because you share common views with other residents that a particular planning application should not be permitted. In many instances this will be primarily because it is on a site we don’t think appropriate but, we might just as easily be thinking it is …..
The wrong type of development, or maybe ….
The wrong scale of development, or perhaps …
The wrong design of development,
But there might be all manner of other reasons too: expressing them in the most effective way in setting out your objections is going to be of key importance.