Dartford Council has approved its plan for housebuilding from 2024 – 2037, with a total of 12,640 homes planned in that period.
Long time council leader Jeremy Kite (Con) says “we’re building the right number of houses for our infrastructure,” but others claim the plans “aren’t going far enough to fight the housing crisis”.
At a full council meeting on April 22, Cllr Kite introduced the plan as “the mother and father of all of our planning policies”.
Local councils must have local plans which allocate sites for development over long periods of time.
If authorities do not have local plans they enter a “state of presumption in favour of sustainable development” – meaning they must approve developments they would otherwise rather refuse.
In the meeting, Labour group leader Cllr Jonathon Hawkes and his group backed the plan.
“The plan talks about Dartford’s status as the second fastest growing borough in England, and that’s a testament to our community’s vibrancy and potential,” he said.
The local plan document itself explains that since 2011, “the number of residents in Dartford proportionately increased by the second fastest rate in the country” with a 20% growth in population from 2011-2021.
Cllr Hawkes added: “The plan envisages that the majority of the housing requirement will be delivered in Ebbsfleet, and there are already real issues at Ebbsfleet in matching housing growth with the infrastructure needed to support it.
“Parents can’t get their children into local primary schools because they’re oversubscribed, forcing them to travel by car outside of the garden city creating exactly the type of situation that Ebbsfleet and this plan is designed to avoid.”
“We are concerned that the plan before us doesn’t go far enough to fight the housing crisis in our borough,” he added.
The “Garden City” at Ebbsfleet was approved in 2014, given licence by the government to deliver up to 15,000 homes at the site.
The original masterplan for the new settlement in the Ebbsfleet Valley planned for 10,964 homes by April 2026.
However, the 4000th home at Ebbsfleet was only finished in February 2024, and under Dartford council’s local plan, there will be only 8,200 there by 2037.
Cllr Hawkes, who represents the area, says this shows that “we’re not building fast enough”.
However, Ebbsfleet Development Corporation Chief Executive Ian Piper explained: “Ebbsfleet Development Corporation are charged with facilitating the delivery of up to 15,000 homes across the Boroughs of Dartford and Gravesham.
“Consequently, a portion of those housing figures fall outside of Dartford’s Local Plan and won’t be included in their figures.
“We continue to deliver significant housing numbers across the regeneration scheme, having recently celebrated the 4,000th home and delivered a record breaking year for housing delivery in the 22-23 Financial Year.
“If we maintain the completion rate of around 600 homes per year, by 2037 there should be nearly 12,000 homes completed.
“It is the case that the delivery of a complex brownfield regeneration project does take significant time, but that is not always the result of a slow planning process.”
Freddie Poser, Director of pro-housing and planning reform campaign PricedOut, argues that Dartford is exactly the sort of place which needs more houses built.
“The only way we’re going to solve the housing crisis is make sure we build more homes of all types across the country – but especially in places where they’re really needed like the southeast and major cities,” he said.
“Dartford is just a quick train ride into central London and that’s one of the places where we’re seeing the most pressure on new homes.”
The council’s local plan sets a target of 35% of homes on new developments to be affordable, but the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, as a separate planning authority tasked with delivering the first garden city in 100 years, has its own target of 30%.
At the meeting, Cllr Laura Edie (Green) said the 35% borough wide target is “a start”.
“Over the last ten years developers have effectively got away with not providing housing that people can afford round here, we’ve been locked out of living in our own borough,” she said.
The local plan was adopted by the council by general assent.
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Kite told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “In the debate tonight you’ve heard a lot of people talking about ‘we need more homes’, but I don’t actually agree, what we need is more community.
“This isn’t about housing numbers though the government may want it to be that way and others may want it to be that way, for me it isn’t about building more homes it’s about building communities, and actually being brave enough to stop development when infrastructure isn’t there.”
On the speed of housebuilding at Ebbsfleet, he added: “The truth is it needs to go at the pace the local community can stand and that infrastructure follows it.”
