Concerns: scale, infrastructure, employment...

Our concerns are:

• Firstly the development is far too large as 1,000 homes possibly more we are lead to understand will be built.
• The infrastructure in place could not sustain the this amount of houses and indeed say at least another 4,000 persons in this area.
• Where are they going to work - there is no work down here to cater for this vast amount of new persons.
• It has been said by the developers that they will be employed at the new industrial site they have built but all we understand are hi tech industries and I cannot believe that all the above possibly 4000 persons are in hi-tech occupations. Many will have to commute to London or other main towns in the area to find work.
• There will be a vast input of motor vehicles in this immediate area making the back lanes very dangerous indeed and as has already been quoted it will take somebody to be knocked down and possibly killed before it is brought to the attention of the authorities.
• The developers have stated that they will make available the land for a new school but are not going to pay for it.

My wife and I only moved down to Bishopstone in March of this year and we are concerned that this development has suddenly come to light. Our searches from Canterbury City Council did not give any indication that a development of this size was in the pipeline. The developers must have had some outline planning in place. But as stated our Searches Were Clear of any Development in the immediate Area. How could this be?

To sum up my wife and I are totally against this development which will spoil the beautiful countryside and would wish you to put us on the supporters list with immediate effect.

DD, Bishopstone, 3rd Nov 2011

Comments

[Ken Wildon]

Speaking as one of the 'leaders' in the successful campaign to prevent a previous Kitewood development to build an 'affordable housing' development on green fields beyond Rosebery, Coventry all I can suggest to current campaigners is that they ask their councillors, some who were also councillors at the time, for copies of the Canterbury City Council planning meeting records relating to the original application some 5 or 6 years ago.

There they will find not only CCC's Planning Department's objections made at the time, but also the Department of the Environment's own Inspector's report following her site visit in which she detailed her reasons for rejecting Kitewood's appeal against the CCC decision. At the end of her report she added the usual caveat that future circumstances might change and that the next 10 year plan in 2011 may review any such changes.

So... ask your councillors if the advice still stands and what improvements have been put in place since that were not in place then and if the Planning Officer's judgement at the time has changed.

The information and the ammunition is out there and you have two choices as I see it. Use it, check it and take it forward... or just keep complaining. It's up to you.

And as an aside... If you move to the seaside to retire or to work please do not complain when someone else increases the housing stock to meet the desire of others to do the same. And... if you buy a nice new, or post war, house next to a field don't assume it will always be a field.

[Compliance Posters]

If there's a voting button i will click it for you and this will support you from against the development.