Kitewood Hillborough Extension

Property developer Kitewood has unveiled plans to develop a new primary school, shopping centre and up to 1,375 homes on the outskirts of Herne Bay, on land between Hillborough and the Altira Business Park in Broomfield. This idea first surfaced in July 2010, when everyone was up in arms about the increasing risk of death on Blacksole Bridge. Click here to read up on the back-story, and find out who the bad guys are.

The plans for the proposed development will go on show during a public exhibition at Reculver Primary School

• between 12 noon and 8pm on Wednesday, August 31, and
• between 10am and 4pm on Saturday, September 3.

Kitewood have also set up a website to keep people updated on the plans, and say they intend to compile reports on the feedback and use them if proposals need re-shaping. Visit: www.hillboroughextension.com

Click it to big it

The 190 acre, £240m scheme is planned in three phases.

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Phase 1

• Would use the land which lies to south of the railway line and north of the Thanet Way, all of which is controlled by Kitewood.  The land adjoins Altira Business Park at Bogshole Lane, and is crossed by the un-made Maystreet Road which goes over the railway line at Maystreet Bridge.
• Phase 1 land covers 25.5 hectares (63.3 acres):
  • 6 hectares (15 acres) of the land for employment use as an extension to Altira Business Park, providing 300 new jobs.
  • 12.5 hectares (31 acres) for 375 houses.
  • 7 hectares (17.3 acres) for landscaping and public open space.
• Will include a footbridge over the Blacksole Bridge railway crossing, and a new link road between Altira Business Park and Sweechbridge Road which will enable access to the Thanet Way at both the Margate Road and the Heart in Hand Road junctions.
• Planning application in early 2012 - if it's successful, work could begin as early as the end of 2012, and finish in 2016.
• Kitewood say: "It will cost in the order of £60 million - an enormous vote of confidence in Herne Bay".

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Phase 2

• Would use land which lies to the north of the railway line and extends to the existing commercial and residential areas of Hillborough, all of which is controlled by Kitewood.
• Phase 2 land covers 27.4 hectares (67.7 acres):
  • 4 hectares (10 acres) of the highest area of land to the west of the site would be used for a new primary school (to be donated to CCC) and a shopping centre.
  • 16 hectares (39.5 acres) for up to 500 houses.
  • 7.4 hectares (18.3 acres) for wildlife habitats and parkland.
• Realignment of Sweechbridge Road to the north of the railway to improve the existing dangerous layout.
• Preservation of the historical pedestrian and cycle links via Maystreet Bridge.
• Design of a traffic system to discourage non-local traffic from passing through Hillborough.
• Kitewood anticipate Phase 2 happening between 2016 and 2026.

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Phase 3

• Would use land lying to the west of phase two and north of the railway line.
• Development of this land would require an additional bridge over the railway because the Maystreet and Sweechbridge Bridges wouldn't be sufficient.
• Approximately 16 hectares (39.5 acres) could be developed to provide an additional 500 houses if the need exists.
• 7.7 hectares (19 acres) would form an extension to the central park on the higher ground in the middle of the scheme.
• The two wooded areas on the northern part of the site would be retained for landscaping and wildlife purposes.
• The central part of this land would be landscaped and planted with trees.
• Pedestrian and cycle links and possibly a bus link would also be provided to Osborn Gardens, Churchill Avenue and Highfield Avenue, enabling residents of Beltinge to access the site whilst preventing traffic from entering Beltinge.
• It is not anticipated that Phase 3 would start before 2026.

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If you have any comments on this proposal, you can add them below, or you can visit www.hillboroughextension.com, or contact your councillors or MP.

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Visit www.SaveHillborough.info for more

Comments

[Trevor Higgs]

Why build an new un-required mass of houses, create numerous traffic issues and spoil a quiet village location taking into account the current amount of unsold houses already in the area? When you make a decision to buy a property in a specific location or have lived there for some years the question of why you make that choice is paramount. I made my choice because of the tranquillity of the location, the view across the fields, security of the location and especially the quietness during non-term time. Any changes made by this development and the need for some to make money takes all of those choices away with no consideration for those already living here. New housing estates do NOT create long term employment and they remove another piece of green belt countryside that provides homes for wild life and peace and quiet for the residents already living there. This proposed development is un-required and not wanted by the people that really matter...the residents of Beltinge and Reculver.

[HBM]

All fair points, I think. I missed their presentation/exhibition at Reculver Primary School today, so I'll be going along to the next one - between 10am and 4pm on Saturday, September 3rd. Reading between the lines of the newspaper reports, I got the impression that Kitewood are being pushier than the Council would like. But maybe that's just the way I read between lines...

[tw]

I completely agree with the first post, it's completely changing Beltinge to a place where people are stuffed in on top of one another more crowding, crime and aggression and hb still continues to go downhill, further proof that the last estate they built their has done nothing to improve the area.

If you want to imagine how this will all turn out think of a town like Bracknell or Slough where continued building of miles of residential housing has not developed the towns in to anywhere nice to go but in to a urban enviroment of industrial estates, masses of housing before you see a open field, supermarket chainstore monoculture, a place where the car is king and cuts off communities with constant traffic making it unfriendly and unsafe to go on the road if not in a car. The towns don't develop they just stay the same depressing place they always were, the councils use them as a sidelined cashcow for the nicer places and people go to the nearest city or decent place instead.

The developers websites is full of loaded questions asking would you be in favour of this and that benefit the estate would provide trying to make people say yes, when nearly all those additional things like changing Blacksole Bridge, a road through the estate to the Thanet Way junctions etc are essential anyway and would completely screw up the roads if they put all those thousands of people there and didn't provide them.

I can imagine their token gesture of providing a open space would be some miserable muddy patch with shrubs and litter on the edge of the Thanet Way.

[tw]

I posted a number of comments on the Kitewood site discussion, however they edit them all to the favour of Kitewood, appalling!

Their questionnaire and discussion question are all phrased to the favour of themselves to make people agree their developments should go ahead, ie would you be in favour of improvements to Blacksole Bridge, and Sweechbridge Road.....well of course its the very minimum they should be doing as they want to put thousands of people there.

[HBM]

TW: I don't know if you have a copy of what you've posted on Kitewood's site that we can compare with what they've shown - it would make for interesting reading.

Suggestion: you (and others) post some more stuff on their discussion threads, BUT KEEP A COPY OF WHAT YOU POST. If they selectively edit your comments again, just send me the two versions, and I'll make it very public.

It is simply WRONG to twist people's comments. Correcting spelling, capitalisation and punctuation for clarity - fine. Asterisking offensive or libellous remarks - if you're feeling squeamish. Changing the meaning - never.

[tw]

Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy of the original posts and it seems they moderate every post before they allow it to be posted on the website as posts from Friday are still waiting to be moderated. They've kept most of the core points but seem to have removed comments in some posts regarding the phrasing of the question itself or about the estate.

From memory, I made the point about Sweechbridge Road that it wasn't dangerous until a lot more people started using it from the housing development built at Hillborough and that the new estate would add to the volume of traffic and they took out the part about the new estate adding to it.


On the education discussion I took issue with their phrasing of the question that we could benefit from a new school, as there would have to be expansion or a new one built anyway to accommodate the extra population the estate will add and in describing that point wrote that 'instead of saying we all might benefit from a new school' which they have truncated my point to 'we all might benefit from a new school', which has changed the meaning of my post in favour of them. I emailed them asking to change that point back or remove the line.

I've got a few more posts on there waiting moderation, I will now take copies of them.