Five Vacant Kings Hill Offices Could Become 260 Homes, Under Plans Now Before Planners

Four separate planning applications have been formally registered with Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council to demolish five vacant office buildings at Kings Hill business park, near West Malling, and replace them with up to 260 homes. The applications, from the site's majority landlord Praxis Real Estate Management, follow a public consultation earlier this year and come alongside a multi-million-pound investment in the office buildings Praxis is keeping.

Praxis bought the 14-building Kings Hill office portfolio from Kings Hill Unit Trust in December 2024. According to figures the company gave when it launched its public consultation in June, the portfolio totals 491,860 sq ft, of which 54% - 265,967 sq ft - was standing empty. Lettings have averaged only around 20,000 sq ft a year over the past five years, a rate Praxis says would take more than 13 years to fill the vacant space at current demand. Harry Trahair, Praxis's asset manager, said at the time: "Working habits have changed since the Covid pandemic. Businesses now want flexible, quality offices with high energy efficiency, rather than large open-plan space which makes up a large proportion of our Kings Hill portfolio." He added that the five buildings earmarked for demolition would need major investment in their heating and electrical systems to bring them up to modern standards, and that with no tenants on the horizon, "the costs of refurbishing these larger buildings makes them commercially unviable."

The redevelopment plans sit alongside continued investment in Praxis's other Kings Hill buildings: £6.75m is being spent refurbishing three of them, with a further £2m earmarked for upgrades to 2 and 17 Kings Hill Avenue, including removing gas heating in favour of all-electric air conditioning. Praxis says nine office buildings will be retained to meet demand from existing and future occupiers, and hopes the investment will "help companies encourage their teams back to the office, rather than work from home."

Worth not confusing this with Kings Hill's existing masterplan, which already includes an earlier phase of development approved in February 2020 for up to 350 homes across three different sites - including, confusingly, a scheme that paired 1 Tower View with a different building, 35 Kings Hill Avenue. That older approval is separate from Praxis's current applications, which cover 1 Tower View on its own, plus 11, 32 and 34 Tower View and 50 Kings Hill Avenue.

A public exhibition on the proposals was held on 12 June at The Spitfire on Kings Hill, and an online consultation closed on 5 July. The four applications are now registered with the council and open for comment, but no planning committee date has yet been set.

Sources: Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce, Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council planning register, 26/01530/OA, Praxis at Kings Hill, consultation site, Kings Hill, Future Plans