Up to 300 Homes on Countryside off Bull Lane at Eccles Recommended for Approval

Plans for up to 300 homes on around nine hectares of farmland south of Eccles, off Bull Lane near Aylesford, are recommended for approval when they go before Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council's planning committee on 16 September.

The application, from Aylesford Heritage Limited, is in outline, with only the accesses onto Bull Lane fixed at this stage and layout, scale and appearance left for later. As well as the houses - a mix of detached, semi-detached, terraced and flats - it would provide a community outdoor sports facility with tennis and padel courts. The site is currently farmland, with its southern edge meeting the Aylesford sand quarry, and it is classed as open countryside and as a Regionally Important Geological Site.

It would not stand alone. The land forms part of a wider strategic housing allocation, reference AY1, in the borough's emerging Local Plan, and it sits between two schemes that already have planning permission: Bushey Wood, a development of up to 950 homes with a local centre and primary school, and Aylesford Lakes, an older-persons' community of up to 250 age-restricted homes, 191 extra-care units and an 80-bed care home on the former sand pit. Together, this corner of the borough between Eccles and Aylesford is set to take well over 1,000 new homes.

Officers say the scheme is acceptable and are recommending it for approval, subject to conditions and a Section 106 legal agreement. The conditions attached run to more than 40 items and include contributions towards improvements to the M20, new footways along Bull Lane in both directions, a travel plan, and hydrogeological and potable-water assessments, the site sitting partly within a groundwater source protection zone.

The application has been brought to the full committee "due to the strategic nature of the development" rather than being decided by officers alone. It is one of several housing schemes on the same agenda, with the council's ability to resist development weakened by a housing land supply that has fallen to under three years. Source: Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council