Just seen this on a Facebook page - Capstone Valley in the Medway area is a beautiful place where they want to build more houses. This will join up Lordswood and Hempstead getting rid of another valuable green lung for the Medway area. Having lived in both Lordswood and Hempstead I know how bad the traffic is and this will just cause even more problems. [snip]
@ME14addick if it's an open Facebook page rather than a private one,
could you just quote a bit of the relevant information then link to the
rest? It'll save everybody's scrolling fingers, particularly if people
end up quoting it in full to reply.
We need more housing developement in the country side. We need to reduce the population density of the urban area for long term public health safety. As more people can work at home no need to increase the commuter numbers either. Also people can do more home shopping so less need for physical shopping areas. I suspect this is the long term future.
Need them in the right areas, at the moment it is 'if you build them, they will come'.
Well I moved down to Hythe almost 4 years ago, I love it here but as I have posted before the M20, and especially the area around Maidstone is a bloody nightmare, for three and a half years the so called smart motorway, which still now has weekend and evening closures, as well as not addressing the issue of smart motorways, you have a 50mph limit? . The Ashford junction due to finish this month after 3 years, looks still some way to go, and frankly I do not go there as it is a traffic fiasco. Traffic flow has been an issue in Maidstone for years, ( for the council) I turned down a job years ago as parking and driving was a nightmare. When I did move down to Hythe I gave up my teaching and invigilation in Bexleyheath as despite leaving Hythe at 6am, I could not get to the Academy at 7.45 due mainly to congestion at Maidstone. Since when we have had the nonsense of Operation Brock, millions spent on a exercise that never held one car or lorry, but cost millions, and endless night closures. As I posted previously, we hope to come back, miss the grandkids, and midweek games at the Valley, amongst other things. Still love Hythe, and the art scene down here, and the live music scene as was! p.s I know the A2 is no better, I lived in Upton Road South, and off the High street for 40 years.
Just seen this on a Facebook page - Capstone Valley in the Medway area is a beautiful place where they want to build more houses. This will join up Lordswood and Hempstead getting rid of another valuable green lung for the Medway area. Having lived in both Lordswood and Hempstead I know how bad the traffic is and this will just cause even more problems. [snip]
@ME14addick if it's an open Facebook page rather than a private one,
could you just quote a bit of the relevant information then link to the
rest? It'll save everybody's scrolling fingers, particularly if people
end up quoting it in full to reply.
I did originally put a link but when I opened it, it showed my Facebook details which I don't want in a forum!
Each district council has to have a local plan in place for typically c 15 years, that allocates sites for development to meet the housing need. If this is approved by central government and the authority can demonstrate they have 5 years of housing land supply they are in a fairly strong position to refuse speculative applications. However many authorities don't have a 5 years supply hence speculative applications, which to be fair contribute to meeting the need.
The system is opaque, complicated and frankly inaccessible to the general public. A hell of a lot of stress and angst could be saved if more effort was put into publicising how the system works. At least we could then have an informed public debate about how to meet the country's housing needs vs where they are going to be built.
I am here in Kent right now... There's acres of space.
There may be the space, but most is not brownfield, it is agricultural and we need nature reserves and green spaces for physical and mental wellbeing. We can't keep losing these precious areas.
I started this thread in my lunch break yesterday and having spent all day on my computer, decided to take a break last night, so have only just come back to this.
My concern at the massive increase in housing developments in Kent and particularly Maidstone, where I live, is not NIMBYism but concern for the destruction of so many natural habitats and loss of green spaces, which once lost will never be recovered. We mess around with nature at our peril and the recent crisis has shown just how important green spaces are for mental and physical wellbeing. Nature is very important economically as well and I suggest reading a very good book by Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, called 'What nature does for Britain'.
I have posted some links above and one fact I didn't realise is that with a population of approximately 1,568,600, Kent has the largest population of any of the English counties.
In 1998 the population of Maidstone was 93,900 and in mid 2018 it was 170,000 and will be considerably more than that now, if the number of new housing developments built since that date are anything to go by.
Kent’s population has grown at a faster rate than the national average over the last 15 years increasing by +16.3% compared to +12.1% for England. In the last year Kent’s population grew by +0.9% whilst the national average was +0.6%.
You only have to look at the changing skyline of London over the last 35 years, to see that it can accommodate far more people than it used to, due to the proliferation of high rise office buildings and that has massively increased the number of people commuting into the capital, many from Kent.
It doesn't matter which party is in Government, they all want to keep building houses and we're paying for allowing our population to grow so fast in the last 30 years.
We need agricultural land to produce food and importing food which we could grow here, does not help with reducing our carbon footprint. The current crisis has again shown the folly of relying on foreign imports for almost everything.
Maidstone has seen a massive increase in population, but the infrastructure hasn't grown with it and traffic in normal times is dreadful, but if there is a problem on the M20 (which is a very frequently) the whole town becomes clogged. Each new dwelling produces on average, 2 more cars on the already congested roads. The local Lib Dems have a notion of 'modal shift', whereby they think everyone will change to cycling and walking to work. There is no way that is going to happen when people don't live near to where they work.
Two new schools have just been built on land that was originally designated as a nature reserve. It is in a totally unsuitable place on the edge of the Area of Outstanding Beauty and will require most pupils to be driven there. There is a supposedly secure, mental health facility overlooking the schools and which houses paedophiles. A more unsuitable place for a school couldn't be found.
Many developments are being built on flood plains, there is one building site, not far from where I live, which was completely under water a few weeks ago. It is built on an area called the Lilk Meadow, the Lilk being a stream and the name tells you that it is a flood plain.
As @LenGlover stated in an earlier post, Kent is definitely not the Garden of England any more and 'patio' is very good description.
The other option to building on Greenfield land is to build more densely in existing urban areas, i.e. high rise flats. There's a lot to be said for mixed use developments including employment to reduce the need to travel to start with. One thing I would say is modal shift is not the preserve of the lib Dems, it's effectively a planning requirement to try and achieve that of any housing development of any significant size.
The thinking being that there is less and less space available for capacity improvements on the road network over time, and there is such a thing as induced traffic (creating more capacity increases the attractiveness of driving so results in more traffic than was using the route previously) so the long term sustainable option is to discourage everyone from driving. I agree co locating housing and jobs is crucial if that is going to be successful.
The residential parking standards in the new London plan for example are essentially that all resi Dev should be car free (as an aside that's why I don't think vehicle access to the valley is the barrier to redevelopment that it has been touted as).
I think it's only right to have concerns when you see substantial change in the area you live in, but it is not just kent. It is the same across the country, everyone has the same complaints about the traffic in their area regardless of how busy it actually is. I don't mean that to sound dismissive, that's just my experience
Limiting car use in London is not so much of a problem, as public transport is good, but that is not the case outside London.
Kent appears to be having more than its fair share of development.
I agree on public transport, the problem is that councils just don't have the money to fund improvements and the only real way it can be funded at the moment is through contributions from new housing development. I don't think it's right but sadly that's where we are
I started this thread in my lunch break yesterday and having spent all day on my computer, decided to take a break last night, so have only just come back to this.
My concern at the massive increase in housing developments in Kent and particularly Maidstone, where I live, is not NIMBYism but concern for the destruction of so many natural habitats and loss of green spaces, which once lost will never be recovered. We mess around with nature at our peril and the recent crisis has shown just how important green spaces are for mental and physical wellbeing. Nature is very important economically as well and I suggest reading a very good book by Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, called 'What nature does for Britain'.
I have posted some links above and one fact I didn't realise is that with a population of approximately 1,568,600, Kent has the largest population of any of the English counties.
In 1998 the population of Maidstone was 93,900 and in mid 2018 it was 170,000 and will be considerably more than that now, if the number of new housing developments built since that date are anything to go by.
Kent’s population has grown at a faster rate than the national average over the last 15 years increasing by +16.3% compared to +12.1% for England. In the last year Kent’s population grew by +0.9% whilst the national average was +0.6%.
You only have to look at the changing skyline of London over the last 35 years, to see that it can accommodate far more people than it used to, due to the proliferation of high rise office buildings and that has massively increased the number of people commuting into the capital, many from Kent.
It doesn't matter which party is in Government, they all want to keep building houses and we're paying for allowing our population to grow so fast in the last 30 years.
We need agricultural land to produce food and importing food which we could grow here, does not help with reducing our carbon footprint. The current crisis has again shown the folly of relying on foreign imports for almost everything.
Maidstone has seen a massive increase in population, but the infrastructure hasn't grown with it and traffic in normal times is dreadful, but if there is a problem on the M20 (which is a very frequently) the whole town becomes clogged. Each new dwelling produces on average, 2 more cars on the already congested roads. The local Lib Dems have a notion of 'modal shift', whereby they think everyone will change to cycling and walking to work. There is no way that is going to happen when people don't live near to where they work.
Two new schools have just been built on land that was originally designated as a nature reserve. It is in a totally unsuitable place on the edge of the Area of Outstanding Beauty and will require most pupils to be driven there. There is a supposedly secure, mental health facility overlooking the schools and which houses paedophiles. A more unsuitable place for a school couldn't be found.
Many developments are being built on flood plains, there is one building site, not far from where I live, which was completely under water a few weeks ago. It is built on an area called the Lilk Meadow, the Lilk being a stream and the name tells you that it is a flood plain.
As @LenGlover stated in an earlier post, Kent is definitely not the Garden of England any more and 'patio' is very good description.
The other option to building on Greenfield land is to build more densely in existing urban areas, i.e. high rise flats. There's a lot to be said for mixed use developments including employment to reduce the need to travel to start with. One thing I would say is modal shift is not the preserve of the lib Dems, it's effectively a planning requirement to try and achieve that of any housing development of any significant size.
The thinking being that there is less and less space available for capacity improvements on the road network over time, and there is such a thing as induced traffic (creating more capacity increases the attractiveness of driving so results in more traffic than was using the route previously) so the long term sustainable option is to discourage everyone from driving. I agree co locating housing and jobs is crucial if that is going to be successful.
The residential parking standards in the new London plan for example are essentially that all resi Dev should be car free (as an aside that's why I don't think vehicle access to the valley is the barrier to redevelopment that it has been touted as).
I think it's only right to have concerns when you see substantial change in the area you live in, but it is not just kent. It is the same across the country, everyone has the same complaints about the traffic in their area regardless of how busy it actually is. I don't mean that to sound dismissive, that's just my experience
Limiting car use in London is not so much of a problem, as public transport is good, but that is not the case outside London.
Kent appears to be having more than its fair share of development.
I agree on public transport, the problem is that councils just don't have the money to fund improvements and the only real way it can be funded at the moment is through contributions from new housing development. I don't think it's right but sadly that's where we are
They don't use it properly though, that's the problem.
My one & only comment on this thread is to say that there's clearly NO chance of Seth moving to Kent any time soon....
Seth doesn't need Kent and Kent doesn't need Seth.
:-:smile:
I was born there too. Kent vomited me out when it realised how distasteful I was.
I was born in south London but Kent sucked me in (1985), then 23 years later in 2008 it spat me out!
That said, whenever I visit the Maidstone area now I'm thankful that it did. The traffic is abominable and I definitely could not live with it now. I've been away from it now for 12 years and in that time the change is huge.
My one & only comment on this thread is to say that there's clearly NO chance of Seth moving to Kent any time soon....
Seth doesn't need Kent and Kent doesn't need Seth.
:-:smile:
I was born there too. Kent vomited me out when it realised how distasteful I was.
I was born in south London but Kent sucked me in (1985), then 23 years later in 2008 it spat me out!
That said, whenever I visit the Maidstone area now I'm thankful that it did. The traffic is abominable and I definitely could not live with it now. I've been away from it now for 12 years and in that time the change is huge.
The traffic is horrendous and there are loads more planning applications in the pipeline. When I retire we plan to move away from Kent.
My one & only comment on this thread is to say that there's clearly NO chance of Seth moving to Kent any time soon....
Seth doesn't need Kent and Kent doesn't need Seth.
:-:smile:
I was born there too. Kent vomited me out when it realised how distasteful I was.
I was born in south London but Kent sucked me in (1985), then 23 years later in 2008 it spat me out!
That said, whenever I visit the Maidstone area now I'm thankful that it did. The traffic is abominable and I definitely could not live with it now. I've been away from it now for 12 years and in that time the change is huge.
Born in Crayford (Erith), but from a prefab on Shooters Hill. To be honest I did live in Dartford for about 2 years from Autumn 1976. East Hill St Martins Road. Saw Kent play at Hesketh Park and all, used to have a drink in the Malt Shovel.
@seth plum these developments are not affordable housing or for rough sleepers, they are expensive houses mainly for commuters.
I imagine they absolutely are. Posh places for rich people. If those who move into them are local, then possibly it will free up their previous accomodation for other local people to move into. A filter down process that somehow addresses the general housing and homelessness issue in Medway and elsewhere.
You can be hard work sometimes
That isn't what happens, these places wont be local people selling a place and moving in therefore creating space they never are
ME...I thought that every substantial housing development had too by local and government guidelines have to have a % of social housing attached to them.
They do to some extent but it depends on how 'affordable' they are.
Thanks and to Carter above...My daughter lives in Bramley in Hants and she picked up a brochure from the village estate agent of new homes for sale being built in the village, there wasnt a house less than 580k for sale.
The village has one shop/pub/bakery/small doctors surgery and of course the estate agent. The infrastructure doesn't match the amount of people living in the village, I would assume somewhere there would be a matrix for what is needed per head of population within these small towns and villages. And I mean essential services not desirable ones like a hairdressers or a chippy. (well everywhere needs a chippy)
While the guidelines say that there's supposed to be a proportion of affordable housing on new development, the developers often work around it by committing to build the affordable bit on a nearby site rather than their prime land. Also if the affordable development is to rent rather than to buy, it wouldn't be being marketed via an estate agent but a Housing Association instead. But even then it doesn't help that the current affordability criteria are based on local house prices and market rents, rather than local wage levels.
My one & only comment on this thread is to say that there's clearly NO chance of Seth moving to Kent any time soon....
Seth doesn't need Kent and Kent doesn't need Seth.
:-:smile:
I was born there too. Kent vomited me out when it realised how distasteful I was.
I was born in south London but Kent sucked me in (1985), then 23 years later in 2008 it spat me out!
That said, whenever I visit the Maidstone area now I'm thankful that it did. The traffic is abominable and I definitely could not live with it now. I've been away from it now for 12 years and in that time the change is huge.
The traffic is horrendous and there are loads more planning applications in the pipeline. When I retire we plan to move away from Kent.
Funny, when we moved north in 2008 our plan was always to move back to central London when I retired.
That changed! We can get our occasional fix of London with a 90 minute train journey - it's great going down, but it's also great coming back to peace and tranquility with nowhere near the traffic. Maybe I'm getting old (no maybe about it really).
@seth plum these developments are not affordable housing or for rough sleepers, they are expensive houses mainly for commuters.
I imagine they absolutely are. Posh places for rich people. If those who move into them are local, then possibly it will free up their previous accomodation for other local people to move into. A filter down process that somehow addresses the general housing and homelessness issue in Medway and elsewhere.
You can be hard work sometimes
That isn't what happens, these places wont be local people selling a place and moving in therefore creating space they never are
I don't have the evidence that you have access to regarding whether the new developments are bought by local people or not. However it seems common sense that unless somebody has two places, that when they move into a new place the previous place is then vacant.
@seth plum these developments are not affordable housing or for rough sleepers, they are expensive houses mainly for commuters.
I imagine they absolutely are. Posh places for rich people. If those who move into them are local, then possibly it will free up their previous accomodation for other local people to move into. A filter down process that somehow addresses the general housing and homelessness issue in Medway and elsewhere.
You can be hard work sometimes
That isn't what happens, these places wont be local people selling a place and moving in therefore creating space they never are
I don't have the evidence that you have access to regarding whether the new developments are bought by local people or not. However it seems common sense that unless somebody has two places, that when they move into a new place the previous place is then vacant.
That doesn't take into account the increase in population generally and as importantly the prevalence of more people choosing to live alone. It also doesn't factor in the house prices in metropolitan areas forcing first time buyers to move out further - and that has always been the case and the reason we moved out to Kent 35 years ago!
@seth plum these developments are not affordable housing or for rough sleepers, they are expensive houses mainly for commuters.
I imagine they absolutely are. Posh places for rich people. If those who move into them are local, then possibly it will free up their previous accomodation for other local people to move into. A filter down process that somehow addresses the general housing and homelessness issue in Medway and elsewhere.
You can be hard work sometimes
That isn't what happens, these places wont be local people selling a place and moving in therefore creating space they never are
I don't have the evidence that you have access to regarding whether the new developments are bought by local people or not. However it seems common sense that unless somebody has two places, that when they move into a new place the previous place is then vacant.
That doesn't take into account the increase in population generally and as importantly the prevalence of more people choosing to live alone. It also doesn't factor in the house prices in metropolitan areas forcing first time buyers to move out further - and that has always been the case and the reason we moved out to Kent 35 years ago!
You may be right that any freshly available property is occupied by people coming onstream as it were, and not by people moving and leaving their previous place vacant. If the issue is about population increase, people choosing to live alone, and affordability, these are circumstances that society as a whole may wish to investigate. What appears to be the case about the new build housing is free market economics running wild. If that is to be counteracted, then there is likely to be constraint on the desire for free market enterprise, I would call that kind of constraint groups of people collaborating in a positive way. Others might even call it socialism.
I am here in Kent right now... There's acres of space.
There may be the space, but most is not brownfield, it is agricultural and we need nature reserves and green spaces for physical and mental wellbeing. We can't keep losing these precious areas.
The development that you mentioned at the start appears to be on agricultural land, and has parks, formal gardens and nature reserves within it - well at least according to the map that came up when I googled it? It is surrounded by fields too. I agree that more use should be made of current empty buildings and vacant spaces in towns.
I am here in Kent right now... There's acres of space.
There may be the space, but most is not brownfield, it is agricultural and we need nature reserves and green spaces for physical and mental wellbeing. We can't keep losing these precious areas.
The development that you mentioned at the start appears to be on agricultural land, and has parks, formal gardens and nature reserves within it - well at least according to the map that came up when I googled it? It is surrounded by fields too. I agree that more use should be made of current empty buildings and vacant spaces in towns.
I believe that developers are supposed to leave the development with a better outcome for biodiversity than was there originally. However when people move in there is no guarantee that it will remain that way.
There is plenty of land in the country, isn't it something like 96% is not built on?
The problem is too much is SE based and getting worse, in the words of Karel Fraeye we simply need to spread out
We need to build some more Milton Keynes type places, whole towns but with the infrastructure to go with it, Hospital, doctors, schools etc.
All that said i'm hopefully moving to the Patio of England next year
The one inconvenient truth is that we’ve spent way too little on infrastructure in the last 30 years or so plus. Want less traffic? Demand more rail and especially high speed rail links and stations. Don’t want your local public services stretched? Demand more schools and hospitals.
thinking you can just “stop” house building because you don’t like sharing the roads with others is a Karl pilkington argument that will eventually cause the economy to crash, making all the things you’ve been trying to protect even worse.
Comments
Traffic flow has been an issue in Maidstone for years, ( for the council) I turned down a job years ago as parking and driving was a nightmare.
When I did move down to Hythe I gave up my teaching and invigilation in Bexleyheath as despite leaving Hythe at 6am, I could not get to the Academy at 7.45 due mainly to congestion at Maidstone. Since when we have had the nonsense of Operation Brock, millions spent on a exercise that never held one car or lorry, but cost millions, and endless night closures. As I posted previously, we hope to come back, miss the grandkids, and midweek games at the Valley, amongst other things.
Still love Hythe, and the art scene down here, and the live music scene as was!
p.s I know the A2 is no better, I lived in Upton Road South, and off the High street for 40 years.
The problem is too much is SE based and getting worse, in the words of Karel Fraeye we simply need to spread out
We need to build some more Milton Keynes type places, whole towns but with the infrastructure to go with it, Hospital, doctors, schools etc.
All that said i'm hopefully moving to the Patio of England next year
It is the authority people voted in.
http://www.maidstone.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/121118/SUB-005-Housing-Topic-Paper-May-2016.pdf
Section 5 (page 16) is particularly pertinent to this discussion, and as I said local people voted for it.
Seth doesn't need Kent and Kent doesn't need Seth.
:-:smile:
The system is opaque, complicated and frankly inaccessible to the general public. A hell of a lot of stress and angst could be saved if more effort was put into publicising how the system works. At least we could then have an informed public debate about how to meet the country's housing needs vs where they are going to be built.
Kent vomited me out when it realised how distasteful I was.
Born in Crayford (Erith), but from a prefab on Shooters Hill.
To be honest I did live in Dartford for about 2 years from Autumn 1976. East Hill St Martins Road.
Saw Kent play at Hesketh Park and all, used to have a drink in the Malt Shovel.
That isn't what happens, these places wont be local people selling a place and moving in therefore creating space they never are
However it seems common sense that unless somebody has two places, that when they move into a new place the previous place is then vacant.
That doesn't take into account the increase in population generally and as importantly the prevalence of more people choosing to live alone. It also doesn't factor in the house prices in metropolitan areas forcing first time buyers to move out further - and that has always been the case and the reason we moved out to Kent 35 years ago!
If the issue is about population increase, people choosing to live alone, and affordability, these are circumstances that society as a whole may wish to investigate.
What appears to be the case about the new build housing is free market economics running wild.
If that is to be counteracted, then there is likely to be constraint on the desire for free market enterprise, I would call that kind of constraint groups of people collaborating in a positive way.
Others might even call it socialism.
thinking you can just “stop” house building because you don’t like sharing the roads with others is a Karl pilkington argument that will eventually cause the economy to crash, making all the things you’ve been trying to protect even worse.