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Cheapest station house is £500K
NEW homes in Hollingbourne will do nothing to address the need for affordable houses in the village, after the cheapestwent on the market for more than half-a- million pounds. Wealden Homes’ development of
14 houses on Godfrey Meadowwas opposed by the parish council, whose recent housing survey high- lighted a need for a “handful” of af- fordable homes in the village. The decision to build 14 houses
fell one short of the criteria that would have required Wealden Homes to include affordable prop- erties. Parish councillor John Cobbett
said: “Our survey found that we needed four affordable properties for a village of this size. “With an entrance price of £535k
for a two-bed bungalow and the dearest property at £735,000, these won’t appeal to villagers trying to get on the housing ladder.” The development, which lies
close to the village railway station, has also attracted criticism in light of problems involving the over- loading of the village sewerage sys-
tem and surface water flooding in Eyhorne Street. After much “to-ing and fro-ing” between the parish council, Southern Water and Kent Highway Services the fact that there is an issue has been accepted, according to Cllr Cobbett. He said: “The county council has declined to adopt the roads and in- frastructure within the develop- ment, which sits on a water meadow that drains into the River Bourne and runs under Eyhorne Street, because they do not meet its standards.We’ve been told a man- agement company will look after it, sowe will see. “In the meantime, Southern
Water has agreed to attend our next parish council meeting to explain what it is to do to tackle problems with the sewerage. The county council has also agreed to send in a drainage engineer to determine whether the flooding problems at Tanyard Green are the result of the new homes or some other issue.” Hollingbourne Parish Council
next meets at the Cardwell Pavilion on Monday, June 13, from 7.30pm. The public are invited to attend.
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News ‘Schools can’t take this’
Continued frompage one houses, to be sold at market value, plus a further 30 units of social housing, comprising 10 three-bedroom houses, nine two-bedroom houses and three four-bedroom houses. Kent County Cllr Jenny Whittle said: “I cannot think of a more dangerous place to locate an access. There is also no footpath linking Barty Farm to the village or to the Ashford Road. Emer- gency access would be via Water Lane, a totally inap- propriate route without footpaths that is regularly flooded.” Officers argued the need
to obtain a five-year hous- ing supply outweighed the “low adverse impacts of the development”. KCC was strongly op-
posed to the application as it cannot provide any more school places locally. It warned Maidstone
Council more than a year ago: “Schools local to this development are unlikely to have the capacity to ac- commodate the additional demandarising fromthe de- velopment. Should the development proceed the county council would only be able to provide additional placessomedistance fromthe development; in this case over three miles away.” Schools in Bearsted and Thurnham are already oversubscribed.
Denis Spooner, of the Bearsted and Thurn- ham Society with the wall
01622 738772
7 Yeoman Court, Ashford Rd Bearsted, Kent ME14 4ND
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