NOW YOU SEE IT...

Prepare to be astounded as Rob Jarman and his Maidstone council planning team preside over the amazing countryside disappearing act

Plans for another 1,200 homes are almost certain to change the face of Maidstone’s countryside.

An extra 800 houses are proposed for Langley, while Tovil could see a 472-home development obliterate fields and footpaths.

It comes as the County Town braces itself for more than 1,000 properties along Hermitage Lane, a road already regularly gridlocked.

And there’s fury as residents claim the latest plans have been ‘snuck onto’ the planning agenda by developers.

An area, already changing with hundreds of new homes, has been hit with another application for 800 houses.

Countryside Properties is proposing a development on land south of Sutton Road, next to the Langley Park site which is already under development.

It has emerged the scheme was likely agreed in principle with Maidstone council’s planning officers just a day before the public Local Plan consultation on a different version of the project began.

This, says Langley Parish Council, makes a mockery of the consultation.

Councillors in August suggested the site be proposed for housing but with a buffer zone to the east of the plot to stop further intrusion into the countryside.

The Countryside Properties plan proposes considerable open space, but in the middle of the site. It shows a school and houses built near the eastern boundary.

It is one of a number of schemes set to change the face of Maidstone.

Hundreds of new homes are planned at Tovil, and Hermitage Lane is set to change with 1,000 new houses in the pipeline.

The latest plans will be considered by Rob Jarman, head of planning and development at the council, and his team.

A council spokesman said planning applications could be made at any time – independently of the Local Plan.

Cllr Cheryl Taylor-Maggio, chairman of Langley Parish Council, said: “This is a speculative application, outside the Local Plan, and without the promised buffer between rural Langley and urban Maidstone, which was agreed and voted on by borough councillors.

“What is the point of Maidstone council putting these proposals out for consultation if officers had already indicated their support for an expanded version of the scheme in a private meeting the day before this consultation was launched?”

The outline application, for a mini village to be called Rumwood Green, includes shops, a restaurant, doctors’ surgery, pub, nursery, offices and a school, but the details are all reserved for future consideration.

Langley Parish Council said it was prime agricultural land and warned these houses, plus 900 new homes already permitted next door, and a proposal for 965 to the north of Sutton Road would place a burden on roads.

Horsehoes Lane resident Simon Reeves said: “All this traffic will end up at the Wheatsheaf, where there is excessive pollution.”

Roger Hunt of Grassland, Langley Heath, added: “It looks like this development is to be sneaked through.”