Dear Residents

At Monday nights Parish Council meeting, Councillors agreed to join together with Bredhurst Parish Council to form a working party to oppose the proposed building of 2,000 houses at Lidsing.

This proposal is under review in Maidstone Borough Council’s Local Plan Review. You can access the Local Plan Review Consultation on the MBC website and make your views known.

The deadline for this consultation is 5pm on the 22 December 2020. The development, if successful, would join up with the proposed development of 450 homes at Gibraltar Farm and effectively join the areas of Bredhurst /Lordswood/ Walderslade and Hempstead into one large urban mass eliminating the once protected ‘Medway Strategic Gap’ that is an ‘area of local landscape importance’. All of the land to be built on is currently green fields and woodland.

If you would like to help protect this valuable open area you can join the Facebook group. The Working Group you can join is: The ‘Against Lidsing Village Development’ Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/lidsingplanningopposition

It has accumulated over a 1000 members in less than a week! As it’s a group, you will need to ask to join the group to view posts.

The Parish Council’s formal response will be agreed at the next meeting of its Environment Committee on the 14th December. This will be a virtual meeting on Teams.

The Preferred Approaches document and Sustainability Appraisal, along with the Local Plan Review evidence base and other information can be viewed and downloaded from the MBC's website https://localplan.maidstone.gov.uk/home/local-plan-review If lifting of restrictions of Covid 19 allows The Maidstone Link in King Street and libraries to open, MBC will also make the document available for public inspection at these locations.

Please send MBC your comments using the consultation portalhttps://maidstone-consult.objective.co.uk/portal/ Alternatively, you can complete the response form (https://localplan.maidstone.gov.uk/home/local-plan-review) and send it to MBC.

1. By email to ldf@maidstone.gov.uk

2. By post to Strategic Planning, Maidstone Borough Council, Maidstone House, King Street, Maidstone, ME15 6JQ

All objections must state area:

SP4(b) Development North of the M2 Lidsing

And all emailed or postal objections MUST contain your FULL NAME and POSTAL ADRESSS