Developers have revealed plans to transform acres of farmland into a 40-home estate.
Cantium Land and Development has submitted an application to kickstart its bid for the land off Colegates Road in Oare, near Faversham.
The town has several applications outstanding for thousands of potential new homes, all of which are awaiting decisions from Swale Borough Council’s (SBC) planning department and councillors.
While an official planning application is yet to be prepared for the Colegates Road scheme, documents sent to SBC reveal the developer is looking to build the sizeable new estate, complete with new roads and a pond.
Wedged between the allotments and Little Cocketts Farm, the plot is the size of four-and-a-half football pitches and is still currently used as arable agricultural land.
Cantium Land and Development director Julian Wilkinson has previously defended schemes put forward by his company, arguing it is tackling the housing crisis.
Speaking to KentOnline in March amid outrage over a 35-home estate in Ashford, Mr Wilkinson said: “We have a national housing crisis. We have consistently failed to deliver sufficient homes over many years.”
Detailed proposals relating to the project are yet to be revealed due to Cantium’s current application being a screening request to determine whether an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is needed or not.
Planning officers at SBC will now assess whether the proposed development would likely have a significant environmental impact.
This will determine whether Cantium would need to include a full-scale environmental assessment should the developer submit a full planning application in the future.
The town is already facing plans for 2,500 homes at Brenley Corner from the Duchy of Cornwall – a scheme that has been met with public protest – and 1,800 homes at Winterbourne Fields in Dunkirk, between Faversham and Canterbury.
A battle to stop 250 homes at Ham Farm also hangs in the balance, while a neighbourhood plan which would see 200 homes built on brownfield sites was approved last year.
It was revealed last week that rush-hour queues at Brenley Corner could be almost five times longer while parts of the Winterbourne Fields scheme are being implemented.
Forecasts submitted by developer Shaptor show that once just 400 of the new homes are occupied, the number of vehicles queuing to come off the M2 at Faversham will grow from 30 to 148 during the morning peak — an almost fivefold increase.
The housebuilder has submitted its own intermediary traffic mitigation scheme such as road widening, traffic lights on three of the five approach roads to the junction and removing a merge lane to reduce weaving and lane-switching.
The proposals have been described as a stopgap while National Highways continues to work up designs for a potential redesign of Brenley Corner.
However, despite previous commitments, formal proposals have not been announced, while funding is yet to be allocated by the government.
