Let’s rejoice that there are so many CAMBYs in Dover district! CAMBYs are people who Care About My Back Yard, who do not deserve to be scapegoated, as nimbys, by ministers of older, lobby-laden governments seeking to please the property development lobby.
We need the right sort of housing and planning policies to resolve the housing crisis that blights the lives of many under 40s. We need new, genuinely-affordable homes for first time buyers and also social housing at fixed affordable rents on longterm tenancy agreements. But so many new developments within 2 miles of Deal, and in Dover district generally, do not offer this sort of housing, although we welcome the council housing that DDC has been able to roll out, for example 48 homes in Wingfield Place, Deal.
Developments on what was ‘best and most versatile’ arable land (which may have been conveniently down-graded) got into the Local Plan, despite words in the National Planning Policy Framework NPPF urging their protection. But the climate emergency worldwide means that yields of staple crops that our UK could until now expect to import, will be in shorter supply. So it is essential that UK retains and improves its national food security, that it retains its food-growing fields and orchards, and protects the quality of soils and the productivity of the fields.
Right Homes, right place, right price charter is the Green Party policy that balances out competing demands for land.
These policies to push the influential house building lobby (who like a return on investment of 20-30% in Kent) to build the right homes (meaning energy-saving, solar-roofed homes), in the right place (within close distance of services, work and schools so likely to be within settlements, and less likely to be greenfield), available at the right price (genuinely affordable for those suffering with our housing crisis).
On greenfield sites just outside the Deal/ Walmer parish boundaries, many new developments are springing up.
We need walk-able neighbourhoods with low-rise blocks of flats, and new low-carbon terraced houses so that we use land more effectively, for the benefit of people and planet.
Two new sites in Sholden, in Mongeham, two sites either side of Cross Road, Mill Hill, in Ringwould & Kingsdown on the A258, on the southern edge of Walmer too.
And objections (including ours) are pouring in on DDC planning portal about application number 25/00112 : 70 dwellings land NW of Kingsdown Rec ground on the edge of Kent Downs AONB.
The public protested against 50 houses when the draft Local Plan was consulted on. It is a development that will reduce wildlife on the edge of a popular but congested rural village with no pavements, on one of the few possible diversion routes used by emergency services when our A258 carrying traffic from Deal / Walmer to Dover /Whitfield is closed.
AND just 1 mile north of the Kingsdown development, along the Glen Rd / Liverpool Rd route (single lane with passing places), much used on the school run to primary school, the site of Ray’s Bottom (SAP 15 in Local Plan) was the subject of a presentation by developer GSE prior to seeking outline permission for another 75 dwelling development, on 25 February at Walmer Parish Hall. This is a site on a steep, food-growing field, adjacent to wildlife rich, chalk downland, Hawkshill Freedown.
What other problems crop up when developers go for greenfield first? ‘Natural solutions to climate change in Kent’ a report adopted March 2021 by KCC, says we need to retain grassland, farmland, wetlands and woodlands because they capture carbon. Sacrificing natural carbon sequestration capacity without making sure the homes are built to zero carbon standards (with solar roofs, orientated to maximise natural heating, cooling and lighting, rainwater harvesting, high-spec insulation / double glazing, etc) exacerbates the climate crisis. It is thus contradictory to the advice of the national Climate Change committee and is not environmentally sustainable.
And of course we know we need to restore nature from its terribly nature-depleted state, so that nature can restore us. Only with the maximum retention of surrounding trees, inclusion of bird boxes, swift bricks, bat bricks, the planting (and maintaining for 3 year thereafter) of two native trees per dwelling, will the biodiversity net loss incurred by the sacrifice of a greenfield site be mitigated (whatever is said by rough and ready desktop calculations claiming BNG, biodiversity net gain).
We need water companies to be statutory consultees, on the capacity of the sewer and freshwater pipes to cope with extra pressures as part of all applications for planning permission. Similarly, Kent Resilience Forum has contacted all parish councils to urge action, to protect Kent from extreme weather conditions we’ve started to experience, to reduce flood risks, by making hard surfaces permeable, to put in fire breaks between residential sites and farmland. But our DDC planning department and planning committee have not seemed too keen to stand up to developers on such issues. Alas!