350 Homes at Coblands Nursery Approved - on Green Belt Land the Council Says It Can Justify

Back in August, we told you that councillors were considering a big new housing scheme at Coblands Nursery on Trench Road, Tonbridge, but that we didn't yet know how the vote had gone. We can now confirm it: at that same meeting, on 19 August 2026, the council's Planning Committee voted 10 in favour, 1 against, and 2 abstentions, to allow the homes to go ahead.

The site is Coblands Nurseries, a plant nursery business that used to operate off Trench Road, between Tonbridge and Hildenborough. This is an "outline" approval - meaning the council has agreed in principle that homes can be built there, and has fixed where the main road access will be, but the detailed design, building heights and landscaping still have to be agreed separately, later on. Up to 350 homes are allowed, and half of them must be "affordable" homes - built to be sold or rented more cheaply than the usual market price, to help local people who couldn't otherwise afford a home here.

This land is in the Green Belt - countryside that's normally protected from new building, to stop towns merging into each other. Building here is only allowed in special circumstances, and the council says this scheme qualifies, mainly because Tonbridge and Malling currently can't prove it has enough land lined up for new homes over the next five years, which is one of the national rules that can open the door to building on Green Belt land. Councillors also pointed to the affordable homes, money the developer will pay towards local services, and the fact that the new homes shouldn't seriously harm neighbours or the protected trees and ancient woodland on the site.

Councillors said they liked that the scheme reuses old nursery land rather than open fields, provides affordable homes at a time when many people are struggling to find one, and includes a new walking and cycling path through to Tonbridge Farm Sports Ground, plus extra parking to help the primary school next door. But they also raised what the official minutes call "significant concern" about extra traffic, whether the roads nearby can cope, parking, and whether there's enough water supply and drainage capacity for hundreds more homes.

The biggest worry was Trench Road itself and the nearby Ridgeway junction, where there's no confirmed plan yet to physically improve the roads. An independent traffic expert looked into it and didn't find that the extra traffic would be "severe" - the legal test that would have let the council refuse permission on traffic grounds alone. Instead, the council has built in a safety net: a condition requiring it to record how busy the roads are now, before building starts, so that if things do get worse than expected once people move in, the council can step in and demand fixes. A similar safety net applies to drainage: Southern Water says building can't even start until proper plans are agreed for dealing with sewage and wastewater from the new homes.

On the affordable homes, councillors wanted a guarantee that local people get first chance at them, rather than people from elsewhere in the borough - so the legal agreement attached to the approval will give priority to people with a connection to the local area. Councillors also added their own extra condition: before building starts, the developer must produce a plan showing how the project will create local jobs, apprenticeships and training for people in Trench Ward, both while it's being built and once people are living there, along with a promise to use local suppliers where possible. Councillors also asked for new bus shelters to be put in nearby.

Source: Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council (Planning Committee, 19 August 2026, application TM/25/01976/PA)