Question 8: To what extent do you agree with the proposed policy for rural exception sites? Please provide comments to support your answer.
Disagree. National and local policies in relation to landscape, LLVs, ecological designations need to be followed. New sites should not be situated in LLV – these need to be protected, they are our legacy for future generations and establishing new sites will destroy these precious landscapes. Existing sites in LLVs need to be restricted in size, not allowed to increase, and new application for additional pitches or subdivisions of pitches rejected. Enforcement needs to be applied at pace to protect sites on LLVs to ensure they do not increase in size and conditions to protect the landscape, ecology are applied and enforced.
Q8 – Policy TR6 (Individual Site Allocation Requirements) Proposed amendment • Specify degree of employment connection and evidential threshold. Reason / policy justification • PPTS paras 13–15 support clear, enforceable eligibility criteria and management. • NPPF paras 16 and 56 require policies to be precise, enforceable, and robust. • Clarifying connections ensures allocations are legitimate and consistent with need assessments. Additional Comment • Requires vigorous enforcement and sufficient budget, otherwise policy may be ineffective.
Parish Council broadly supports Policy TR6: Rural exception sites. However, it considers that some adjustments are necessary, in order to ensure the policy will be judged sound, as well as to otherwise strengthen the policy, namely: TR6 Part 2.a. To make clear the relevant connections to the local community and employment are of a strong and longstanding nature; TR6 Part 2.b. To clarify either in the policy itself, or the supporting text, that the definition of domination of the settled community is for houses in the immediate vicinity of the proposed development, not in the closest village (which will often be some distance away); TR6 Part 2.d. Headcorn Parish Council considers that a single access point to the whole site is needed to ensure that development is sustainable. The destruction of hedgerows associated with multiple access points is both bad for the environment and leads to development that is more in keeping with an urban or suburban area than the local countryside; and TR6 Part 2.e. It is not just national policy that should be followed in relation to national landscape, ecological and heritage designations. Relevant policies within Maidstone’s Development Plan, including any relevant Neighbourhood Plan policies, should also be followed.
We do not agree with having rural exception sites for G&Ts. There are specific policies in place for G&T accommodation applications, and to have permanent rural exception sites outside the normal planning process would complicate an already complicated subject of G&T accommodation in rural areas, in open countryside, with all the sustainability issues. In the vast majority of cases the settled and traveller communities are not inclusive or integrated and tensions exist, which prompted the production of PPTS 2015 and 2023. This needs to be recognised as it is contrary to the "Vision" that the DPD is trying to project. Policy TR6 for G&T Rural Exception Sites, in perpetuity, will further aggravate tensions and should be removed. Before MBC starts acting as if a wish list is evidenced need, we should have a rigorous interviewing process involving the settled community and their needs – perhaps in conjunction with Maidstone Kent Association Local Council (KALC)