Planning Matters

Unfortunately the Parish Council has not been able to obtain an update on the progress of the application. We had been led to believe that the application would go before the planning committee before the end of January.

The owners of Hempstead Farm wish to divert the footpath that currently runs through their farm yard slightly further along Hempstead lane to run alongside the neighbouring houses and southern edge of the farm buildings.

Bapchild and Tonge Parishes Councils were present at Hempstead Farm to witness a clear breach of the conditions of the planning application for the parking of lorries on the site by Fleetwood Transport.

The recent revised retrospective application for a single stables structure at Stones Farm is set to go before the planning committee in late January 2008.

It would appear that a number of news articles have recently appeared attacking the plans of local farmer Kevin Attwood, who farms at Doddington near Sittingbourne, to build thousands of homes in Kent.

In what appears to be a planning loophole the land owner of Stones Farm is conducting a game of planning application tennis, whereby they submit an inadequate retrospective planning application and the planning department then reject it; they submit another inadequate planning application and so on

IT WAS with great interest that I read Swale Council's Tory leader Andrew Bowles and his colleague Cllr Don Jordan's grand announcement (Letters, November 29) that they are now supporting the opposition of the Stones Farm housing development in Bapchild.

The unelected South East England Regional Assembly is asking for your opinion on their South East Plan document

I WAS completely and utterly astounded by the headline that faced me (East Kent Gazette, March 15) about the suggestion of potential development of 800 new homes in Bapchild.

Public representations brushed aside just 24 hours after the consultation period ends as Swale Borough Council agrees to push through their Economic Development Strategy unchanged.