Heathlands Garden Settlement SPD

Comment

Representation ID: 678

Received: 10/12/2025

Respondent: Harrietsham Parish Council

Harrietsham Parish Council’s primary concern on the proposed Heathlands Garden Settlement is the effect on the A20 Ashford Road which runs through the village. This road has buildings on both sides of the highway and has a railway bridge in the village. As a result, the road cannot be widened.
Objectives of the Heathlands Garden Settlement
Under 4.2 Objectives of Section B of the Heathlands Garden Settlement SPD, it states “With improvements to the local road network, enhanced bus services, a new and expanded network for walking and wheeling and a new Heathlands Rail Station to achieve a comprehensive approach prioritising sustainable movement.” However, there is nothing in the SPD providing any details of how this infrastructure will be delivered and how it will affect the village of Harrietsham. Only mention of the proposed transport aims are covered are in the Appendices B and C and require the developers of the Garden Settlement to only deal with a limit number of issues relating to travel and transport.
Appendices to the SPD
Appendix B covers “Anticipated Developer Contributions to be secured by legal agreements” to be entered into by the developers of the Heathlands individual sites. Does this mean that any required infrastructure will not be provided until after the developers have built the dwellings and received funds from their sales? It is noted that this Appendix B includes:
“Provision: Public Transport and Active Travel
Requirement:
To promote appropriate sustainable travel, options such as the improvement of rail and bus services and the improvement and/or provision of high-quality pedestrian and cycle routes as deemed necessary, relevant and proportionate.
Delivery:
In line with the needs identified through the assessment and determination of each planning application and the relevant phase of development and in accordance with the requirements set out within this SPD and the Local Plan.”
“Provision: Off-site Highway Improvements
Requirement:
To mitigate the impact of each phase of development on the highway network as deemed necessary, relevant and proportionate. National Highways will require developer-led, fully funded, developed, and delivered works secured through conditions and S278 agreements.
Delivery:
In line with the needs identified through the assessment and determination of each planning application and the relevant phase of development and in accordance with the requirements set out within this SPD and the Local Plan.”
Appendix C covers “Anticipated Planning Application Requirements” for each future Planning Application for developments on Heathlands. These include:
“Supporting documents: Transport Assessment & Travel Plan
Notes
To include a full range of associated transport and movement documents such as parking strategy, delivery and servicing strategy, and cycle and walking strategy.”
None of these require developers to look at nor provide funding for the provision of a new railway station required by the Objectives mentioned above. Nor do they require developers to look at the effect of their development on village of Harrietsham situated between the Garden Settlement site and Maidstone.”
Transport Assessment
In section C of the SPD entitled “Placemaking and Design Guideline of the SPD”, under paragraph 6.11.21 it states that “Transport assessment work has been prepared alongside the SPD setting out how the network will be monitored and measures introduced.” In addition, 6.11.22 states “the separate Transport Assessment sets out the necessary approach to monitor and manage transport matters”. However, there appears to be no such separate Transport Assessment on the SPD website – is there one? There is a document entitled “Heathlands SPD Annex – Transport” produced by WSP which provides information on the current situation and notes that that all future transport assessments will be dealt with under Outline Planning Application(s).
In addition, there is online a paper entitled “Technical Note: Junction capacity assessment results July 2025” produced by Mott MacDonald, which looks at only the junctions from the Heathlands site to the A20. This indicates that 52% of the traffic coming to and from the developments at Heathfields during peak times (08:00 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 18:00) will travel towards Lenham, Harrietsham and Maidstone. There is no modelling of how much traffic (in numbers of vehicles) will travel through Harrietsham to and from the M20 Junction 8 or Maidstone. We also note that there is no mention of Kent County Council (KCC), the local highways authority, in this document.
Presumably, the full Transport Assessment includes the comments of KCC and National Highways as the two authorities dealing with transport issues on the A20 and M20 at Junctions 8 and 9, and of Network Rail in connection with the new Heathlands rail station.
We expect that this document also deals with the issues raised by the Planning Inspector in his paragraph 125 where he stated: “I recommend additional detailed content requiring further assessment, for both junctions 8 and 9, as part of any subsequent SPD process and detailed Transport Assessment and for National Highways and KCC to be co-operatively engaged in this work.”
Harrietsham Parish Council would like to receive a copy of this Transport Assessment as any traffic heading to or from the M20 at Junction 8, would have to travel through the village. Currently, any closure of the M20 between junctions 8 and 9 already brings the A20 Ashford Road to an almost standstill so we would be interested in any data etc. concerning traffic along the A20 Ashford Road in the village.
If there is no such Transport Assessment document then, in our opinion, the SPD does not satisfy the requirements of the Planning Inspectorate.
In conclusion, we find that the Supplementary Planning Document has failed to provide the specific details recommended by the Planning Inspector and agreed to by Maidstone Borough Council. We also fear that MBC has or will have major conflicts of interest if it is the applicant, and the policy maker, and the decision maker. It may be that the whole project will be a very large, isolated housing estate being built with no significant infrastructure and possibly of a poor quality – very similar to the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow built between the 1950s and 1970s.

Comment noted.
Officers agree that the issues should also reference wider potential impacts across the area.
Additional commentary has been added to Chapter 3.3: Constraints Opportunities to acknowledge wider impacts across adjacent areas.
Figure 18: Infrastructure Requirements as per the Local Plan Review acknowledges the need for necessary off-site highway mitigation.
The SPD is supported by a Transport Annex and Transport Assessment which were both published alongside the SPD under the 'Evidence Base'. This material sets out additional guidance on the approach to transport assessment and mitigation (Chapter 8) as has been agreed between Maidstone Borough Council, Kent County Council and National Highways.
The SPD is providing guidelines and principles, and further work will be required as part of the preparation and determination of planning applications to consider impacts and necessary mitigation.
Appropriate requirements and mitigation measures will be secured through the use of planning conditions and legal agreements.