Our objections in full have now been submitted and published on the planning portal.
We have submitted a number of documents - briefly outlined below.
To view the full objections along with the corresponding evidence go to https://twbcpa.midkent.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=S71Y5PTY0US00
Representations and Objections concerning Persimmon’s proposed Layout, how it pays no regard the building limits and its harmful impact on the landscape and how it will look. (This is backed up by a “Evidence Report which we compiled late last year and was adopted by the Parish Council in December)
Comments on Traffic and the Transport Assessment look at the statistics on road usage on Goudhurst Road and within the village, projected figures to include additional vehicles following development, and road design/features that will make excessive development dangerous for all residents of the village.
Comments on the Energy Statement look at Persimmon's proposals for energy efficiency and concludes that the design falls short in its provision of sustainable and ecologically sound design features.
We will also shortly be posting our comments on the Design, Access and Infrastructure. In this we point out numerous missing design features required by the HNP design guide; how parking could be much more discreet; whether Back Lane is a suitable second emergency access; the Goudhurst Road footway; and the complete lack of synchronisation of timing in the provision of new medical and school facilities.
BFF's Summary of Representations and Objections concerning Layout and other matters are summarised below. Full reasoning and evidence are included in the full document published on the planning portal:
The Application does not propose a sustainable development as required by the NPPF (Dec 2023) Section 8, neither economically, with inadequate provision and certainty on the delivery of supporting infrastructure; nor socially, with no consideration given to how such a large relative population increase can be integrated into a small village with very limited transport connections to nearby towns; nor environmentally, with ecology links between wildlife areas severed, missed opportunities to design in even more energy efficiency, and significant harm to surrounding landscape and protected views.
Only part of The Application site is designated for residential use and a doctors’ surgery/medical centre within the Limit of Build Development (LBD) defined the Horsmonden Neighbourhood Plan (HNP).
The most recent overall housing allocations covered by the Tunbridge Well Local Plan for Horsmonden is shown as 230 to 290 dwellings. This does not reflect the latest situation and this needs to be revised to 215 to 259 dwellings. (The Parish Council have commented on this in the separate SLP Consultation.
Within this revised allocation for Horsmonden, The Bassetts Farm application does not cover the whole of the site included by SLP allocation policy (AL/HO3).
The Application assumes the 65m contour as its building limit without consideration of the body of evidence used by TWBC in establishing the LBD. The 65m contour as a building limit guide is not relevant. The site must be considered on its own merits with its wooded backdrop of the mature trees which line the old Hop Pickers’ Line. The Application seeks to place 25 houses, the doctors’ surgery/medical centre AND the site’s primary access road outside the LBD.
By extending beyond the LBD to the northwest the ecology corridor linking the Hop Pickers’ Line wooded area to The Application site open space, and the countryside beyond, is cut off.
Views from the AONB (now called the High Weald Natural Landscape) in Goudhurst, as well as views from the south/southwest, are made worse by The Application.
To accept The Application would cause much greater harm to the surrounding landscape including the setting of the AONB, than a development which is within the areas designated for building by the SLP and the made HNP.
By limiting The Application development within the LBD, including land for the doctors’ surgery/medical centre, at housing densities which would allow more green space to be integrated within the development and cars to be parked beside houses, this would give a new development with a sense of place as a transition from the village to the countryside.
Such a scheme within the LBD would yield 80 houses.
Even after these adjustments, Horsmonden would still be making a substantial contribution to Borough housing needs and the village population will still expand by about 40% due to the SLP allocations, all of which are being actively developed in the near term.
There is now a serious misalignment between the most recent version of the SLP and the TWBC Infrastructure Delivery Plan (IDP) not only regarding inadequate medical services, but also all other infrastructure which will be impacted by the earlier timing now anticipated, including: education, water supply, sewer and sewerage capacity, power supply, and highways issues.
We strongly object to this application for the above reasons. It would be irrational to recommend or grant this application which seeks to ignore many policies in the SLP and HNP and does not provide a robust Infrastructure Delivery proposal. To rectify this situation the application should be revised significantly to address these comments and others prior to it being considered by TWBC Planning Committee.
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