A retrospective application for a change of land use and permission to site three Gypsy mobile homes and a day room is among the new planning applications submitted to Maidstone council.
The proposal is for land to the rear of Robin’s Nest, an existing Gypsy/Traveller site, and will share a drive with Robin’s Nest, giving access to Park Lane in Boughton Monchelsea. The three mobile homes are already in place.
The application also seeks permission to site six cars and three touring caravans.
The land is currently classed as agricultural.
The applicants point out that, according to Maidstone council’s Local Plan research, there is a need to establish 343 new Gypsy sites in the borough by 2040.
Elsewhere, in Weavering Street, Weavering, there is a proposal to demolish Griffins, a bungalow, and replace it with a new self-build two-story home, including a rear terrace and gated driveway.
The new property would have a larger footprint and an additional two parking spaces. The design includes the provision of two rooflights in the upper pitch of the roof to create a “sun tunnel,” providing natural light to the building’s central first-floor hallway.
In Headcorn, the Smiles Dental Clinic, currently operating on the first floor of a grade II listed building in the High Street, wants permission to expand into the ground floor, which has been vacant for two years, but was formerly a hairdresser’s.
The move will entail a number of internal changes, but no change to the exterior of the building. The practice says it will enable it to better serve disabled customers.
In Tovil, on Farleigh Hill, Vistry Homes is asking the council to sign off on the measures it has taken to protect the 272 houses it is building there from potentially dangerous gases.
The company has installed a gas protection membrane at the base of the next batch of properties being built and had it inspected by expert consultants.
The land is a former landfill site, and although extensive remediation was later carried out over many years to remove the waste materials, the site sits adjacent to, and below, the Walnut Tree Meadows nature reserve, also a landfill site, where the waste is still generating methane gas.
For more details on all of the plans, visit the online Planning Portal here.
All of the applications are currently awaiting a decision by Maidstone council.
