Weak Planning Policy

Cllr’s Harwood and English (LibDem) frequently refer to the inadequacy of our Planning Policy and they are quite right in this because it is weak and frequently ineffectual. However they are of course more shy when it comes to pointing out that it was produced under the leadership of the LibDems back in 2000.
At the last full council meeting Cllr English in response to a direct question over who was responsible for this state of affairs, admitted the Local Plan (the planning policy) was not robust and blamed what he called a ‘rogue’ planning inspector for the inadequacies and to quote “their [the LibDems] only mistake was not having stood up to him”.
Beyond this he intimated that advice given at the time, was that the policy would be sufficiently robust, however he declined to say by whom exactly. We can only hope they do not take the same advice this time over the new planning policy, the LDF.
If we think back over the last 7 years at the various developments across the Borough, how different would Maidstone now be if the LibDems had stood up to the inspector and ensured a robust local planning policy?

Round two for the Loose Area Character Assessment

The Character Assessment process put in place by Conservative Councillors last year to help strengthen our weak planning policy is moving forwards for Loose quicker than expected. A wide ranging group of interested parties met on Wednesday evening at Loose Primary School to have a second in put to the assessment process. Character Assessments will help protect against developments that do not maintain or enhance an area. The consultants from Tony Fullwood Associates who are undertaking the documents development will be arranging for local public consultation on the draft document in Nov 07 with an expected final version for March 08. This document will then have legal weight in planning terms. The consultants did make the point that it would not stop all developed, but that development will have to be more in keeping.

A Defining Moment for Loose and Maidstone

Maidstone Council is moving ahead with plans to create character assessments. On Tuesday evening 31st July 07, representatives of The North Loose Residents Association, Valley Conservation Society and Loose Parish Council undertook a walk about of an area spanning from Armstrong road, south to Loose. Also present were Borough Councillors, MBC officers and the consultants who have been commissioned to under take this pilot project.


The purpose is to define the character of the area, with the resulting documentation then to be worked up in to a planning document called a Supplementary Planning Document. This will be an extremely important document by which planning applications in the future can then be judged against. This will help ensure that future planning policy is robust as it will be the yard stick by which applications can be judged to determine if they are in keeping with the character of the area.

This work must then be rolled out across the whole of the Borough to complete the planning document so all areas are affored the same protection.
Clearly this is a large undertaking for the council but is a giant step in the right direction and not a moment to soon.

Planning Policy was not robust

The Maidstone Borough Council, Cabinet Member for Regeneration has publicly admitted that the planning policy document, known as the “Planning Policy - Maidstone Borough-Wide Local Plan Adopted, Dec 2000” as put in place by the previous LibDem administration had not been robust enough. The Cabinet Member sort to blame, what he called a ‘rouge inspector’ but admitted that they [the previous LibDem administration] should have pushed harder. In other words they had been weak when standing up for the borough.

A salient feature here is not having put in place Supplementary Planning Guidance which specifically looked at defining and understanding the context and character of areas. Supplementary Planning Guidance provides planning guidance which amplifies the policies and proposals of the Local Plan. These are essential documents that enable a local interpretation of nationally imposed Planning Guidance, the term guidance is some what a misnomer here as they are a legal framework and hence not so much guidance as centrally imposed government control.

The Local Plan states in Policy ENV2;
Planning permission will not be granted for development in the defined urban area and village settlements unless: 1) proposals relate sympathetically to the context provided by their setting.

However if the local context is not defined in a systematic and consistent way, decisions are open to legal challenge.

How would Maidstone have looked today if such documents had been in place?

Has irreparable damage been done already?

How much back garden development would have been refused?

The good news is that Character Assessments are now underway as put in place last year by the previous administration (Con). We are assured that these documents will be developed for the whole of the borough, to be included in the future planning policy for the borough.