Otterpool Park LLP has submitted amended plans for a major new garden town in Kent that they say will deliver more than 8,000 homes, community facilities and infrastructure.
The plans will make the garden town among the largest in the country and is expected to create more than 9,000 jobs over the next few decades.
The plans look to create a development on a 2,000-acre site between Folkestone and Ashford.
The key details of the outline planning application include:
- Up to 8,500 homes of a range of types and tenures, including over 1,870 affordable homes and over 400 self-build homes.
- Up to 29,000 sqm of retail and related uses.
- Up to 87,500 sqm of employment floor space including commercial business hubs, a commercial business park and a light industrial park.
- Up to 67,000 sqm of education and community facilities floorspace including primary and secondary schools as well as nurseries and crèches, health centres, places of worship and community centres.
- Up to 29,000 sqm of mixed retail and related floorspace.
- Up to 8,000 sqm of hotel floorspace.
- Up to 8,500 sqm of leisure floorspace, including a sports pavilion and indoor sports hall provision.
- Infrastructure and utilities including a new electrical substation, gas and potable water network reinforcement and provision of a fibre-to-home broadband network.
- Green infrastructure (approximately 50% of the application site). Vehicular and cycle parking, including electric vehicle charging points.
- Blue infrastructure.
- Car, motorcycle and bicycle parking
The application includes extensive survey work as well as strategies on green infrastructure, heritage, transport and mobility.
Andy Jarrett, director of planning at Otterpool Park LLP, said “Extensive work has gone into amending the outline planning application to incorporate feedback and present a proposal that will address local housing needs, deliver substantial infrastructure improvements and create direct opportunities for the area, as well as being able to respond to changing and growing needs in the future.”
It is about time that the term “garden town” is not used anymore. Turning green fields into a housing estate is not creating a “garden town” at all and is just marketing jargon to make it sound less damaging.
Looking at the artists impression, it looks nothing like a garden. It’s just full of houses with some token greenery, trees and water carefully placed to try and make it look better from above.
The South-East of England is hugely populated and it can hardly support the current residents, without adding another more homes. 8,000 homes equates to approximately 32,000 more people, 16,000 additional cars and 10,000 extra school children!
Further information about the planning application can be found at the Folkestone & Hythe District Council website here.
