The future of a long-awaited dual carriageway project is set to be decided next year after a developer appealed to amend its funding.

Hodson Developments Ltd, the lead company behind the 5,750-home Chilmington Green development in Ashford, is required to pay for vital upgrades to dual a stretch of the nearby A28 Chart Road between Matalan and ‘Tank’ roundabouts.

A planning agreement with Kent County Council currently states it must put forward the money when 400 homes are occupied.

About 300 properties are now lived in but, in the last month, Hodson has submitted an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate that “seeks to vary or delete” a significant number of its current requirements in its section 106 agreement.

Those agreements allow councils to get money from developers in exchange for granting planning permission for projects, making a development proposal acceptable in planning terms.

When the project designed to relieve the heavily congested route was first announced, it was set to cost £26.2 million but “inflationary pressures” mean this has now risen to £30 million.

Following a meeting of Ashford Borough Council’s joint transportation board earlier this month, members of the committee said they were keen to see the project followed through.

Cllr Paul Bartlett (Con), who sits on both ABC and Kent County Council, says the authorities are “united in holding the developer to account”.

“You can't build houses without infrastructure and this is a major piece of infrastructure that we all hope it will come forward as quickly as possible,” he said.

“KCC recently carried out a traffic survey on the stretch and unsurprisingly, it found the dualling is still required and as far as the council is concerned, it is still on the cards.

“The decision will now be with the Planning Inspectorate.”

A public inquiry to consider all the amendments Hodson is asking for is due to be held in 2024, likely in late spring or early summer.

In documents prepared for the joint transportation board meeting, ABC’s assistant director of planning and development, Simon Cole, said officers had hoped to speak to Hodson about the scheme in September.

“Officers proposed to Hodson a without-prejudice discussion as to how and when the scheme should be moved forward but are still awaiting a response,” he said.

“We have considered whether there are options for breaking the dualling scheme into separate phases that might deliver incremental improvements over time, but the nature of the scheme means that delivering it in this way would only create marginal increases in highway capacity in any first phase while further adding to the overall scheme costs.

“Therefore, this is not considered to be a practical or cost-effective option to pursue.

“Officers are satisfied that the scheme design is the optimum available to deliver the necessary capacity improvements.”

Work to dual the road was supposed to start in 2018 when scores of trees were felled along the stretch in preparation.

But constant delays to the project mean work will now not start until at least early 2025, according to KCC.

Mr Cole says the scheme was recently reviewed to see if it could be re-designed to reduce overall costs.

However, land constraints such as widening the railway bridge next to the former Chart Leacon depot means this would not be possible.

Mr Cole said: “In 2018, initial works on the scheme, including some felling of trees alongside the road, commenced on the basis that there was partial funding available to support the scheme from the ‘Local Enterprise Partnership’ which would have reduced the overall financial burden on the developer.

“However, this option was eventually not pursued by the developer and this external funding support opportunity fell away. Since this time, no further works have been undertaken.”

Last year, plans for Ashford's fourth McDonald's were approved for land next to the 'Tank' roundabout, but work is yet to begin.

KentOnline contacted Hodson Developments for comment, but did not receive a response.