Moto Update

I guess that you are now all aware of the disappointing news that the Inspector overturned TMBC’s decision to refuse consent and a 200 HGV, 24/7/365 Truckstop is now consented in outline form. A detailed application will follow, and the Planning Authority will be powerless to resist.

I attended the Hearing, and it was apparent to me that the Inspector, who was awarded an OBE for Services to Transport Planning, was very enthusiastic about HGV driver facilities. At one point she said that only 2% of drivers were female and the reason for that is the poor quality of support infrastructure. She also stated as follows. “You may think that I am biased, and that is because I am, drivers suffer a severe lack of basic facilities”. I wrote her statement down.

I have now read the report in detail and discussed this with our planner, and I can make the following comments about her determination.

1. According to the judgement, the area along the A20 is now Greybelt, no longer Greenbelt, where development is now permitted.
2. The building of a 24-hour, 365-day, lighted truck stop does not impact in any material way on the views from the National Trust owned ‘Golden Nob’ that has spectacular views over the area.
3. The coalescence of the built commercial infrastructure of the Nepicar and Invicta Business Parks, soon to be infilled with the 200 HGV Truckstop with hotel and fuel station, operating continuously, can be made perfectly acceptable to local residents, walkers on the national footpaths in the North Downs and London Road pedestrians, by suitable mitigation.

If this consent is allowed to persist then the flood gates are open. I foresee industrial development along the A20 almost up to Wrotham and east past Addington to Aylesford. Spaces between Platt, Borough Green and Ightham becoming housing estates. In short, we will become an urban conurbation where once open fields become a fond memory. Irrespective of the emerging Local Plan, as soon as developers are alerted to Greybelt, then planning applications will follow and TMBC will be powerless to resist.

The combination of the Governments new classification of Greybelt, that is deliberately loose and a ‘catch all’, and this self-confessed “biased” Inspector applying it to Wrotham’s rural fields, consigns this area to being developable real estate in future.

I well remember Mike Taylor’s description of rural villages, delineated by church spires, and separated by the patina of rural fields. Will we look back at that idyll in the future when the bulldozers and scaffolding lorries are all around us and mud coated bollards are the norm?

I await our barrister’s opinion as to the lawfulness of the Inspectors judgement.

Kind regards,

Cllr Pete Gillin

Chairman of Wrotham Parish Council