Maidstone’s Local Plan is currently under review. Following a Call for Sites several options within the Parish are being considered and have made it through to the next consultation stage. The consultation on the Preferred Approaches (Regulation 18b) for the Local Plan Review has been scheduled for the 1st of December 2020 to the 22nd of December 2020. This is the next stage of informal stakeholder and public involvement in the local plan review process. The sites being considered under this consultation are: Ref: 196 Willow Farm, Sandling – 40 houses Ref: 216 Rochester Meadows, Sandling – 20-25 houses Ref: 330 Lidsing – 9 houses Ref: Lidsing – creation of a new garden community of 1,000+ houses If you would like to have your say on these proposed developments then please go onto Maidstone Borough Council’s website and look under Consultations, the link is further below.

Boxley Parish Council will be submitting their responses to the Consultation after their Environment Committee Meeting on the 14 December.

MAIDSTONE BOROUGH LOCAL PLAN REVIEW REGULATION 18 PREFERRED APPROACHES CONSULTATION

The Local Plan Review – Preferred Approaches (Regulation 18) document has been prepared for public consultation. The consultation document sets out the preferred spatial strategy for future development, proposed amendments to existing strategic and development management policies and new development management policies for the period 2022-2037.

The Preferred Approaches document is accompanied by a consultation on the Sustainability Appraisal. Sustainability Appraisal is an iterative process which runs alongside the production of the Local Plan Review and helps inform the ongoing decision-making process. The Sustainability Appraisal document being consulted on considers the options for the spatial strategy, site allocations and garden settlements. An update to the Local Plan Review evidence base, including an update to the Strategic Land Availability Assessment and Habitat Regulations Screening Report, has also been published.

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 council’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, we will also make the document available for public inspection at these locations.

Please send us your comments using the consultation portal https://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 us
1. By email to ldf@maidstone.gov.uk
2. By post to Strategic Planning, Maidstone Borough Council, Maidstone House, King Street, Maidstone, ME15 6JQ
Consultation on both documents open on Tuesday 1st December and we need to receive your comments no later than 5pm on Tuesday 22nd December.
Please note, in order to maintain compliance with the published timetable for the Local Plan Review (contained in the adopted Local Development Scheme) the 22nd December 2020 will be the cut-off date for any further call for sites submissions for this Local Plan Review. Site submissions received after this date cannot be guaranteed to be assessed and may be carried forward to the next review.

All consultation comments will be made publicly available on the consultation portal (https://maidstone-consult.objective.co.uk/portal/ ) in due course. This is so that interested parties can view all the responses that have been received. Published information will include the comment and responder name. All demographic and contact data will be removed. All data is processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. The consultation responses will be used to inform the next stages of the Local Plan Review.
If you do not wish to receive Local Plan Review updates like this in the future, please contact the Strategic Planning team at LDF@maidstone.gov.uk and we will remove your details from our contacts database.

Maidstone Borough Council is committed to maintaining the privacy, security, trust and confidence of all our partners, clients and customers when you use our services. To find out more, please make sure you read our privacy notice here: http://www.maidstone.gov.uk/home/privacy-and-cookies
Kind regards, Rob Jarman, Head of Planning and Development, Maidstone Borough Council.