By Brian Pain
It is entirely understandable that many people in the Town are wholly confused by the complexity of local planning processes.
They read in the press and elsewhere of proposals by Swale to allow developers to build thousands more new houses in and around Faversham and see the reality of the many recently built estates which already have put a serious strain on the Town’s infrastructure without doing much to provide appropriate and affordable accommodation for our actual housing needs.
Central government requires local authorities to produce long term development plans for their area and these plans need to demonstrate the ability to provide sufficient sites for the somewhat arbitrary number of new dwellings that are deemed necessary by our Westminster
masters.
The vast number of pages of documents generated in the process of producing a development plan are not readily accessible or make for easy reading and consequently,
most of the population know little or nothing of what they are about to be lumbered with until it is too late.
This is certainly true of the emerging Swale Local Plan which will probably not be presented for adoption until late in 2025 but about which rumours already abound concerning where it is likely the next 9 or 10 thousand houses will be built in the Borough. Worryingly, there seems to be a distinct possibility that the countryside around Faversham will bear the brunt of new development. The argument being that by concentrating it all in one area, in planning jargon, it becomes sustainable.
This is a fight we need to be engaged with over the next year and we hope that organisations opposed to the worst kind of speculative development will work together to mitigate the damage done to our special town by whatever Swale finally proposes.
There is one great advantage, however, of an adopted Local Plan in that it protects the area from opportunistic planning applications on sites not specified in the plan by those seeking a quick financial killing. However, this is only an advantage when the Local Plan itself hasn’t laid waste to it.
THE FAVERSHAM NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN
In many respects this is a completely different type of document. Namely:
It concerns itself only with the administrative area covered by Faversham Town Council and not the countryside surrounding the town.
It takes a holistic view of issues concerning the Town and has developed a list of 16 policies, other than site allocations, covering things such as movement, design, community facilities, the town centre and local green space. These policies are largely uncontroversial and generally benign.
It proposes a very modest addition of about 200 new dwellings on brownfield sites within the town boundary. These are listed towards the end of this article. A significant number of these sites had previously been identified in the already adopted Faversham Creek Plan. Other more controversial and damaging sites were considered and rejected.
It proposes eight areas within the town boundary as designated Local Green Space. (see more details of these in the following article by authors of the Neighbourhood plan). This will give them significant protection against any future development.
Most importantly, if this plan receives a positive vote by the electorate of Faversham on November 21st other large speculative proposals for further housing developments within Faversham can be legitimately rejected by the Planners.
This includes two particularly destructive pending applications for 180+houses at ABBEYFIELDS by Atwood Trust and another 240+ houses on HAM MARSHES by Gladman Developments.
Both of these applicants are notorious for making speculative applications on greenfield sites in and around existing settlements acting for landowners on a “no win no fee" basis. They exploit local planning authorities with weak local plans and repeatedly appeal against refusals causing cash-strapped councils extra expense which they can ill afford.
The Faversham Neighbourhood Plan is not unrealistic in its aims and ambitions and as such sadly recognises the futility of including grandiose proposals for Faversham Creek and Basin which are unlikely to be achieved given the supine and impotent nature of our local, regional and national representatives.
THE FAVERSHAM EYE URGES ELECTORS TO VOTE YES TO THE ADOPTION OF OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN ON THE 21ST of NOVEMBER
We can then concentrate on the emerging and much more contentious Swale Local Plan which unlike this Neighbourhood Plan presents a real existential threat to what makes Faversham such a special place.
PROPOSED SITE ALLOCATIONS WITHIN THE TOWN BOUNDARIES - KEY TO CLASS DEFINITIONS AT BOTTOM
1. Former coach depot, Abbey Street. Allocated for mixed use in Classes E and C3.
2. Ordnance Wharf. Allocated for mixed
use in Classes E, C3 and F2.
3. Fentiman’s Yard, New Creek Road. Mixed use in Classes C3 and E.
4. The Railway Yard, Station Road. Residential Class C3.
5. Former White Horse car park site, North Lane. Residential Class C3.
6. Sites at BMM Weston Ltd on Brent Road. Residential Class C and C3.
7. BMM Weston car park, Creekside. Mixed use Classes C and E.
8. Kiln Court and Osbourne Court, Hazebrouck Road. Allocated for residential development including dwellings and residential institutions.
9. Land at Beaumont Davey Close, Ashford Road. Residential Class C.
Class C: Buildings where people sleep
C2: Residential institutions
C3: Dwelling houses
Class E: Commercial uses
Class F2: Local community use
コメント