The council met last night to discuss the application for 1,600 houses on St Johns College owned Grade 1 farmland. Birchington councillors and residents spoke against the application. There was a great turnout of campaigners standing against building houses on rich agricultural farmland.
St John’s College is seeking approval for plans to expand the size of a small coastal village in Kent by over one-third. The college is the principal landowner of Birchington-on-Sea village in Thanet and is listed as one of the applicants on planning permission documents for its development.
The wider community has voiced opposition to the plans since the initial application, filed in December 2020, with over 700 objections linked to the application. These list ecological and agricultural grounds for concerns, among others.
The Birchington Action Group Against Housing Development has voiced their opposition to the proposals. One member of the Facebook group wrote: “this planning application is not for the good of Birchington and its residents, it’s to line the pockets of people who are already incredibly wealthy”.
The decision on the application will be made today (Thursday 5th September). Planning Officers are asking the committee to ‘defer and delegate’ on the 1600 site application. It is such a difficult and complex application that it would be unfair to leave all decisions to the officers. Locals are hoping that the committee do the right thing by them.
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