Project updates

Thank you to everyone who engaged with our consultation for the development of Land at Eccles.

We received a lot of useful feedback during our consultation. We carefully considered and incorporated these comments before submitting an Outline Planning Application to Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council (TMBC) at the start of 2022, and can be found by searching for reference 22/00113/OAEA on the Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council planning portal.

We were really pleased that so many people took time to look at our proposals, send us their comments and come along to our event. The community engagement we undertook in 2021 resulted in changes to the plans, including reducing the area of development near Bull Lane; providing additional parking for existing residents; agreement to support the establishment of a youth football team; retaining many of the existing allotments; moving the local centre further into the development site; closing the Bull Lane/Pilgrims Way junction to all but emergency vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians; and adding retirement homes to the plans. You can find more information about the submitted plans, as well as the ways in which your feedback helped shaped them, within this newsletter we sent to local residents in early 2022.

The submitted plans include:

• The development of up to 950 homes
• A local centre with potential commercial / office / retail / community spaces
• A new primary school with space for up to three forms of entry and a nursery
• A wide range of open spaces covering almost 50% of the site
• Replacement of the existing sports pitches and new changing facilities
• Ecological improvement and the protection of local wildlife and habitats
• Safe and convenient walking and cycling routes
• Access to sustainable transport
• New strategic infrastructure, including a spine street through the middle of the site and new vehicular access to the south of the village on Bull Lane and to the north of the village on New Court Road

Since we submitted the planning application, we have been working hard to incorporate the feedback received in response to TMBC’s consultation. Following this work, we have now submitted an addendum to our original application, outlining how we have updated our plans in response to feedback. Local residents should have received a letter from TMBC about this, explaining how you can respond to their consultation following the submission of an addendum. We also sent a newsletter to local addresses to update people about this in December 2022. The addendum can be found by searching for reference 22/00113/OAEA on the Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council planning portal. The key changes include:

• Changing the shape of the school site to make it more regular shaped and easier to develop, in line with Kent County council Education requirements
• Providing additional landscaping throughout the site
• Small change to the crossing on Court Road to increase safety following a Road Safety Audit
• Providing further details of ecological mitigation measures, including a 15m buffer to the ancient woodland and a 10m buffer around Eccles Old Pits, including a rustic fence, planting, and shallow swales and basins
• Updates to, and more details about, the heritage mitigation measures, including the protection of Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Sites
• Details of our contribution towards a new bus service between the site and Maidstone, with a peak-hour link to Snodland via Peters Village
• Submission of a Design Code outlining how the site would be developed (through Reserved Matters planning applications) to complement the existing village

The submitted masterplan for Land at Eccles