Sturry homes bid still alive as city council leader steps in

A relief road is planned through the estate, lining Sturry Hill with the A28 and bypassing the busy level crossing

An unexpected decision by the council’s planning committee to reject a scheme for 650 new homes in Sturry has led to a surprise intervention by the authority’s leader.

The development was turned down last week over concerns about its density, the lack of affordable housing and the potential damage to ancient woodland.

The decision went against the advice of council officers and came despite repeated reminders from the head of planning that the land is allocated for new homes in the authority’s own Local Plan. Council leader Ben Fitter-harding has since stepped into the debate to try to have a revised scheme reconsidered in the next few months, amid fears the decision will be overturned on appeal.

He says rejecting developments on land allocated in the Local Plan potentially “opens the floodgates” to developers on other sites as the council will not be meeting its housebuilding targets.

The rejection of the Sturry scheme also led to the withdrawal of associated plans for 450 homes at Broad Oak, because both are needed to contribute funding towards the £30 million cost of a Sturry relief road, which is integral to support new housing proposals in the area and neighbouring Hersden.

Cllr Fitter-harding expressed his concerns in a forthright email to the planning committee’s Conservative group members this week, including its own vice-chairman Cllr Ashley Clark, who had described the Sturry application as coming from “the sardine school of planning”.

In the email, the leader warns that refusing the development, as well as a previously rejected scheme for 900 homes in Hillborough, near Herne Bay, now means the council is unable to meet its government-imposed five-year new homes target. He says: “Every application must be considered on its merits and this is not a criticism of those councillors who voted against the Sturry site, or indeed Hillborough.

“Whilst I don’t want to go anywhere near planning, strategic sites and the Local Plan are a political matter, and therefore we must consider the wider implications to the district as a group.

“It is absolutely my responsibility to make members aware of our obligations to ensure the council is delivering its Local Plan for the protection of our district as a whole.”

The approval of the housing projects is also dependent on, and crucial to, the funding of a Sturry relief road bypassing the village’s busy level crossing.

It is being part-funded by a £5.9 million grant from the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, which looked set to be withdrawn following the rejection of the Sturry homes development.

But the enterprise partnership has now agreed a “stay of execution” until February 12 following an 11th hour appeal by the city council and KCC leader Roger Gough.

Cllr Fitter-harding now hopes that discussions between the developer, planning officers and the planning committee chairman will result in a “tweaked application” coming back to committee, leading to its approval.

In his email, he warns members: “If we do not, the Sturry and Broad Oak sites will still proceed. But there will not be any funding contribution for the relief road from the SELEP. “Instead, the remaining affordable housing will be lost and the contributions that would have funded education will instead have to be spent on the road. A truly awful outcome.”