Around 400 Homes on One Agenda as Tonbridge & Malling's Planning Committee Meets

Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council's planning committee meets at Kings Hill on 16 September with an agenda dominated by housing, and a common thread running through it: officers are recommending approval on all five schemes.

The largest is an outline application for up to 300 homes and a community tennis and padel facility on farmland off Bull Lane at Eccles, near Aylesford, which is covered separately. Alongside it:

Esquire Developments wants to build 35 houses, 14 of them affordable, on 2.4 hectares of countryside paddocks off The Rocks Road, south-east of East Malling and close to the East Malling Conservation Area and three listed buildings. The site is not allocated for development in the Local Plan. It was called in to committee by Councillor Tatton, and objectors argue it is premature given the council has no up-to-date Local Plan, and that The Rocks Road and Sweets Lane are already at capacity. Officers recommend approval.

Cooleo Properties has applied in outline for eight self-build plots on around 1.5 hectares of grazing land within the West Malling Conservation Area, off the A20. The application was called in by Councillor Dean over housing delivery and countryside and conservation-area concerns, and has drawn 23 objections. Officers recommend approval.

A scheme by the Tregothnan Estate for eight homes on former Ministry of Defence land south of Discovery Drive was already resolved for approval by the previous committee in December 2024. It returns because South East Water's objections about supply capacity, raised through the Local Plan process, are now a material planning consideration; officers again recommend approval, having assessed it against policies requiring adequate infrastructure.

McCarthy & Stone's part two, part three-storey retirement building of 50 units returns after the committee deferred it in the summer over parking. The developer has revised the layout to 44 spaces, up from 38 - still marginally below the standard for ordinary flats, but comfortably above the standard for sheltered housing. Officers recommend approval.

The backdrop to all of this is that the council's five-year housing land supply has fallen to 2.96 years, down from 4.36 years at the end of 2023, and a new National Planning Policy Framework took effect in August. With no adopted up-to-date Local Plan - the current one is still at the examination stage, and the Government has taken the 1,300-home East Malling scheme out of the council's hands entirely - a weak land-supply position makes it far harder for councillors to refuse development they might otherwise resist. Source: Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council