Not a Number Any More: Berkeley Homes Seeks to Change How Its 165 Hildenborough Homes Are Capped

Berkeley Homes has filed a fresh amendment to its 165-home redevelopment of Oakhill House in Hildenborough, this time asking Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council to change not what gets built, but how the permission counts it. Application 26/01862/NMA, validated on Monday 5 October, would remove the "138 apartments" and "27 houses" figures from the description of development and replace them with a planning condition capping the total number of homes instead.

Right now, the permission's own wording fixes an exact split: "138 apartments" and "27 houses." That precision is the problem for Berkeley. Any change to that exact mix as building continues - combining two small apartments into one larger one, say, or rearranging unit types within a later block - technically contradicts what the description says was approved, and has to go back to the council as a formal amendment before work can proceed on it. That's largely why this permission has already needed updating four times since 2020, each time a few units shifted during detailed design. The new application would drop the 138/27 split from the description entirely and replace it with a simple condition instead: no more than 165 homes on site, full stop. With that in place, Berkeley could rebalance the mix of apartments and houses as later phases are built, without filing a fresh amendment for every small change - while the council keeps the one number that actually matters, the 165-home ceiling, locked in as an enforceable condition rather than just wording in a description.

This is the fifth change to reach the site's planning record since the original permission, TM/20/02245/FL, was granted in 2020 for converting and extending the former office buildings - including the Grade II listed house itself - into 138 apartments and 27 houses in the grounds. It was amended twice more as a Non-Material Amendment before Berkeley came back in October 2023 with a Section 73 application, 23/03204/FL, to vary two conditions covering noise insulation and the approved plans. That application was approved on 9 February 2024, and it's the one 26/01862/NMA now proposes to adjust again.

Oakhill House itself has a longer history than the current scheme suggests. Listed Grade II in October 1954, the early 19th-century stuccoed building was originally a house before becoming offices - most recently for Fidelity International, the investment fund manager, whose later glass-fronted office pavilions were built onto either side of it and don't share in the listing. Historic England's listing describes an entrance hall with four Tuscan-coloured marble fireplaces and a staircase with a mahogany handrail surviving inside. The current scheme converts the listed building itself into apartments while building new houses in the grounds around it - a conversion-plus-infill approach rather than a straight demolition and rebuild.

Berkeley's planning filings make clear the site isn't sitting idle while its paperwork gets tidied up. Recent condition-discharge applications reference "plots 148-160 of the houses contained within stage 3/zone 3 of the phasing plan," alongside separate sign-offs for external lighting, sustainable drainage verification, contamination verification, a paddle tennis court enclosure and a water safety assessment - the kind of detail that only gets filed once groundworks and build-out are already under way.

The applicant behind the scheme is Berkeley Homes (Eastern Counties) Ltd, part of the wider Berkeley Group, operating from Berkeley House in Leatherhead, Surrey.

Sources: Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council planning register, ref. 26/01862/NMA, ref. 23/03204/FL, Historic England, List Entry 1277842