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‘In My Humble Opinion’ by parish
council
member
Jamie Pout
writing in
LOCAL PLAN a personal
capacity
– delayed yet again

SO HERE WE ARE. The plan outlining how it will increase and improve to claw
back some of these missed homes.
next draft of Dover District As the Local Plan is due for adoption in 2023 this is
Council’s Local Plan, due out likely to be fairly straight forward and bring about few
in November 2021, delayed surprises not already in the local plan. The district has
likely got away with minimal intervention.
until February 2022, is delayed More worryingly is the fate of neighbouring
for a further 2 months. Canterbury. The city council only met 65% of its target,
Everything surrounding the Local Plan is putting it comfortably within the worst performing 51
“confidential” so it’s unclear exactly what the hold up local authorities in the country.
is, but what’s clear is the constant shifting of goal posts They needed to meet a threshold of 75% to avoid
makes public consultation almost impossible. serious penalty. So what does this mean? These
Without keeping a keen eye on new dates, members authorities trailing behind targets must now make
of the public could easily miss the short consultation “presumption in favour of sustainable developments”
period and fail to have their voices heard. in terms of planning applications. Canterbury City
Council have already started the process of making its
Rumour has it, the North Aylesham development case for missing its targets: the pandemic (although
(along B2046 Adisham Rd down to the train line) has this was already accounted for); water quality issues at
been removed from the plan: the exact reason again is Stodmarsh; and horrendous targets in the first place. It’s
confidential. But don’t hold your breath: the housing unlikely the government will be willing to budge.
allocation is likely have to go somewhere.
In practice, any development that can be seen to
In more recent revelations, the end of 2021 meant be “sustainable” gets a free pass from the planning
the government released its Housing Delivery Test authorities for the next 12 months. This puts areas
(HDT) numbers. Each local authority across the such as Adisham Woods and other green spaces at
country is given a ‘score’ based on how many of its serious risk of development - and hastily produced
allocated houses it has managed to build. It would seem plans at that!
that the East and South East has not faired well. Many
authorities in London, Sussex, Essex and Kent have It means that campaigners and local councillors are
fallen short of their targets. less likely to have a say over quality of build, safety,
overdevelopment and road safety as these plans favour
https://content.knightfrank.com/blog/2022/1/ developers before they’re even brought to the table. So
cff5e76c-baf2-4c4a-9573-14c967680a8a/updated- houses may soon be popping up all over the boundary
provisional-fixedthumb2.jpg between Canterbury and Dover district. Maybe the
For Dover, we fall into the “action plan” category. The additional burden on Aylesham is no longer needed?
district council built 80% of its target: not too far short. We will wait with bated breath to see what the
This means the local authority has to produce a future holds.

Do you have an idea for a story, or would you like to comment on what you’ve seen in the
magazine? Write to us via email: ayleshamintouch@gmail.com

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