A controversial housing mogul has defended his decision to cut down trees across three acres of woodland he owns and hinted at what’s to come for the plot.
Millionaire landlord and former maths teacher Fergus Wilson says he will be sending the contractors back in September – after the end of the nesting season – to cut down the trees on the remaining nine acres of his 12-acre site off Heath Road in Boughton Monchelsea.
But Mr Wilson said his actions were for genuine farming reasons – the chestnut trees have been coppiced for their timber to make fence palings.
He said: “The woodland was first planted for coppicing in 1922. It was coppiced in 1936, then again in 1954, and then in 1982.”
In 1987, the land was put up for sale, and Mr Wilson, who at the time was living in a house opposite the wood, became concerned at rumours that another villager wanted to buy the land and turn it into a lorry park.
He said: “We had a bit of a bidding war, but I bought it, essentially to preserve our view.”
However, since then, Mr Wilson has moved house – although he still lives in Boughton Monchelsea village, he is no longer opposite the wood.
He said: “I need to think what to do with the land. It is being coppiced now, but the next cycle won’t come around for another 42 years or so, by which time I would be 115!”
Back in December 2022, Mr Wilson was already raising eyebrows by talking of a scheme to build 33 homes on the land, which lies south of the B2163, Heath Road.
He stated then that it could yield 33 homes and generate £25m, which he described as his “retirement nest egg.”
Mr Wilson bought the land for £20,000.
However, now he has much more ambitious plans.
He said: “Things have changed. Boughton Monchelsea is no longer the rural idyll that it used to be.
“When I first moved to the village in 1975, it was very rural. Sometimes you’d wake up to find a cow wandering down the road and the ducks used to lay their eggs under the hedgerow on Heath Road.
“Now it’s semi-urban and the Heath Road sometimes feels like a race-track.
“Three years ago, we were talking of building detached homes, but now the market is all for smaller, affordable homes, and you could certainly fit in a lot more than 33 homes across 12 acres.”
Mr Wilson said he had put the matter into the hands of an agent to draw up a scheme, but he said the first task would be to contact Boughton Monchelsea Parish Council and ask if they wanted an input in his plans.
Over the years, the parish council has reached agreements with developers on a number of schemes that have resulted in several swathes of land coming into public ownership through the Boughton Amenity Trust.
Mr Wilson said: “I was in talks with the parish council many years ago about developing the land and possibly including an uplift of 5% for the parish.
“Some of the councillors then were in favour, but the majority didn’t want to know.
“Now the composition of the council has changed a great deal and I’m ready to approach them again to see if they want to be involved in some way. It’s up to them.”
Although the site is not allocated for housing in the Local Plan and is outside the urban boundary, Mr Wilson said the planning landscape had changed and he was optimistic that planning permission could be obtained.
He said: “Despite having a Local Plan, Maidstone council can no longer show a five-year housing supply, which means they have to look on development proposals favourably and there have already been other developments along the Heath Road.
“The population keeps growing and everyone needs accommodation.
“Any land in Maidstone borough along an A road or a B road is now a prime target for development.”
Mr Wilson, 76, admitted there had already been complaints about his coppicing actions. He said: “One of the villagers complained and the borough council sent an enforcement officer around – but the council had already issued me with a coppicing licence, so that was that.”
He said: “When you are a property owner, people always complain, whatever you do.”
“But people need housing and even King Canute could not hold back the tide.”
Doug Smith, a parish councillor with Boughton Monchelsea Parish Council, confirmed that the parish had received an invitation from Mr Wilson’s agent for a meeting, but said the parish had not yet met to decide how to respond.
Mr Wilson and his wife Judith were among the UK’s biggest buy-to-let landlords with a portfolio that once stretched to 1,000 properties, mostly in Ashford and Maidstone. They have since largely sold off their holdings.
He was the subject of a BBC documentary in 2019, titled Britain’s Most Controversial Landlord, which was an epithet he earned for various decisions to ban tenants from his properties on housing benefits, to ban tenants who were victims of domestic abuse and to ban “coloured” tenants – the latter proposal was overturned in a court case.
Mr Wilson, an ex-amateur boxer, has also appeared before the courts for using a mobile phone while driving, assaulting an estate agent, harassing Ashford council staff and racially abusing a Slovakian traffic warden.
He is also the subject on a seemingly never-ending court case that arose from an incident in August 2021, and has been postponed 13 times so far.
He is accused of racially aggravated harassment after calling a Maidstone council employee a “petty little Hitler.” But issues ranging from the Covid pandemic to administrative errors mean his court hearing keeps getting pushed back.
Coppicing is a traditional method in woodland management in which trees are cut down to a stump, which, in many species, encourages new shoots to grow from the stump or roots, thus ultimately regrowing the tree. After a number of years, the coppiced trees can be harvested again.
The land in question is actually held in the name of Mr Wilson’s daughter, Tanya Wilson.
Maidstone council has not yet declared it is falling short of having a five-year housing supply, but new figures due to be released shortly are expected to show that is the case.
