News |Waterside Park
downsmail.co.uk ‘Grotesque’ plan thrown out
TWO large companies in Marden were unable to persuade Maidstone Council’s planning com- mittee to accept theWaterside Park application, despite the threat of up to 450 job losses.
The committee refused Gallagher Group’s application to build a 17- hectare industrial estate south of M20 Junction 8 on land bounded by Old Mill Lane to thewest, Maid- stone Mercure Great Danes Hotel to the east, A20 roundabout to the north and River Len to the south. The site would have contained 105,000sqm of offices, industrial buildings andwarehousing, with a crèche and café. Derek Edwards, representing Automotive Distributors Ltd (ADL) and Scarab Sweepers, told the committee that both companies were outgrowing their headquar- ters at the Wheelbarrow Industrial Estate and wanted somewhere with better motorway links. The failure to permit Waterside
Park means ADL and Scarab are now likely to leave the borough when their tenancies end in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Mr Edwards read out a letter
from David Cassingham, the man- aging director of Scarab, who said: “Our business is going from strength to strength. The HGV weight limit through Marden
ADL
Supplies parts for Japanese, Korean and American vehicle brands. Recently became part of a family-owned German company called Febi Bilstein. Projected 2014 turnover £84m (rising to £125m by 2016, claims the company) . Local employment costs £9m, it insists. 230 local employees (company says it will employ an additional 100 over next three years) Other spend in local economy is £3m through 10 main local suppliers.
SCARAB SWEEPERS
World’s largest manufacturer of single engine street sweepers. 220 employees in UK (company says 50more will be added over next few years).
Combined salaries for staff at both companies is £15m per year. FOR
Maidstone Council economic development; Mid Kent Cham- ber of Commerce; UK Trade and Investment Department; MP Helen Grant.
AGAINST Land earmarked for warehousing south of M20 Junction 8
means it is less than an ideal loca- tion.With the right site we would- n’t leave Maidstone; Waterside Park would be perfect.” Mr Edwards also read a state-
ment on behalf ofADL, which said: “We have outgrown Marden. In January we received 92 containers – a record number – that had to be transported by lorry through the centre of Maidstone. It makes no environmental sense to keep doing that. “If we are forced to move out to Sittingbourne or Ashford, it is Maidstone that would lose out in employment. We have looked and there are no other sites in Maid-
stone. There are plans to build many houses in the area, but peo- ple need jobs to buy them.” Cllr Mike Hogg was strongly in
favour of the development. He said: “By saying no, it sends out a message that Maidstone is closed for employment and will lose out to other parts of Kent. “Aylesford Newsprint [off M20
J6] is bigger than this. Yes, there may have been controversy when it was first built, but now it is part of the community. In the long term this will help Maidstone and help deal with the traffic problem – 1,200 lorry movements a year would not go through Maidstone.” Cllr Rodd Nelson-Gracie also backed the application, because ADL and Scarab are based in Mar- den, in the ward he represents. However, therewere many more
not in favour of the proposal. Eight parish councils were in opposition and of the nine public speakers on the evening, eight were against. Eight committee members voted to refuse the plan. Cllr Richard Ash, local ward member for Bearsted, was a signif- icant member of the committee to voice his opposition. “This is con- trary to policy ENV28 and harms the character and appearance of the area by creating vertical platforms in a rural area. There would be so
Duke to open town’s new hospital
HRH Prince Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, is to officially open KIMS – the new hospi- tal in Maid- stone.
The Queen’s cousin (right) will visit the Kent Insti- tute
of Medicine
and Surgery onWednesday, April 2 to perform the official opening
14 Maidstone South March 2014
as a representative of Her Majesty. The £85m hospital has been six
years in the planning and almost two years in construction. The independently-owned pri-
vate tertiary hospital will offer services to the NHS by agreement with the local hospital trusts and NHS commissioning bodies. Covering seven acres, KIMS will
serve a catchment area of 1.7 mil- lion patients and employ more than 350 clinicians. Work is now about to start on
the adjacent Maidstone Medical Campus, which will offer a med-
ical training centre with graduate and post graduate teaching facili- ties for doctors and nurses, plus student accommodation, in con- junction with lead universities, re- search and development facilities, as well as a neurological rehabili- tation and care centre, a specialist paediatrics unit and a specialist women’s health unit. Details of the duke’s itinerary
have not yet been announced, but it is anticipated he will be shown around the hospital by the Dick- mann family, who have been the instigators of the scheme
Bearsted, Detling, Langley, Hollingbourne, Headcorn, Lang- ley, Leeds, and Thurnham parish councils; Leeds Castle Founda- tion; CPRE Protect Kent; KCC; Natural England; Kent Downs AONB unit; Joint Parishes Group; Maidstone Council land- scape officer; Maidstone Coun- cil conservation officer; KCC Cllr JennyWhittle; Kent Wildlife Trust; 30 individual objectors.
much remodelling that itwould de- stroy the landscape. “It is for an isolated greenfield
site that would erode the character of attractive, open and unspoilt countryside east of Bearsted. “The proposed buildings are
huge; they totallydwarf the nearby Mercure hotel.” Cllr Tony Harwood, another member of the committee, said: “I am not often shocked by the plan- ning applications we receive, but this is a grotesque proposal. This is a quarry in a rural area near a her- itage site [Leeds Castle]. “It’s like building an industrial
estate in front of the Pyramids or Stonehenge; it’s that bad. The scale of the buildings is enormous. “If you excavate 740,000 tonnes
to take off-site, the potential for ingress and swamping of the River Lenwould be disastrous. This com- mittee needs to convey the depth and power of opposition.”
Parish funds
HEADCORN is the second parish in Maidstone to receive funding support towards the development of its neighbourhood plan. The parish council recognises a
need for more housing, but wants to ensure that development recog- nises tradition, rural community values and infrastructure needs. The parish has just received £7,000, along with advice and as- sistance, from the Department of Communities and Local Govern- ment to develop its plan to meet those objectives. Broomfield & Kingswood was
the first parish council to get fund- ing for its plan.
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