Neighbours to the planned 450 home estate are concerned about traffic and other issues it will cause to the Hempstead area.
Local Democracy Reporter Gabriel Morris reports.
Local Democracy Reporter Gabriel Morris reports.
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00:00These fields could soon be home to 450 new homes, but there's almost double the amount of objections.
00:07Proposals for Gibraltar Farm have long been in the works, and council officers have now recommended approval for outlying planning permission for the nearly 30 hectare site.
00:17Now as you can see, this is one of the most rural parts of Medway, fields as far as the eye can see.
00:24They are relatively close to the M2 here, but if you were going to go by roads from where the proposed development is,
00:31will it take the best part of 15 minutes down roads which locals say are already congested?
00:37Now some traffic will be coming out of what is a single lane track known as Ham Lane.
00:43And there is also provision for three passing places on West Soul Road.
00:50Just to give you some idea, my children used to refer to that as the nightmare road because the traffic going down that is an absolute nightmare.
00:58It's just not wide enough for more than one vehicle for a long part of its length.
01:04So the impact on the residents of Hempstead, and I am a resident of Hempstead, I live in Hempstead Road, is going to be really very, very serious.
01:14If the scheme is given the green light, some locals would want to see a trunk road being built from where this main road abruptly ends to Junction 4 of the M2.
01:23But that's not part of the proposals, and there are now calls for the development to be deferred to allow infrastructure plans to come forward.
01:30Yet that decision will be in the hands of Medway's planning committee this evening, where proposals have previously been rejected owing to concerns about the ecology of the area.
01:39But officers say mitigation is now in place and it won't have as big an impact as previously thought.
01:45There's an awful lot of talk about bats, dormice, stag beetles, birds, not a single word about the impact on the residents of Hempstead.
01:54Not a single word. And I think we're in a really bad place when planning is concerned, when the impact on people is subservient to the impact on bats and dormice.
02:06Arguments on both sides will be heard tonight. It's never clear which way it'll go.
02:11But for housing targets for around 1,700 homes within Medway each year, even if Gibraltar Farm is approved, this won't even scratch the surface.
02:20Gabriel Morris, in Medway.