Mother Nature and Neptune are far stronger than Persimmon Homes.

That was the warning from a town councillor about plans to build 70 more homes in Sholden despite flood fears.

Deal’s Nick Tomaszewski spoke out at a district council planning committee meeting last Thursday.

He said: “I have not heard of a single person in Middle Deal who wants this. The objection is foremost over flooding.

“This site is a flood zone defined as the highest risk.

“I remember the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies and Nineties when Eastry was called Eastry-on-Sea.

“There is no protection when the sea claims its birthright.

“I implore Dover District Council to consider the risks very carefully as this is folly.

“The more building we have the more we have vegetation replaced by concrete and asphalt to absorb floodwater.

“Mother Nature and Father Neptune are far stronger than Persimmon.”

The company wants to build the homes on farmland by Hyton Drive, Roman Close, in addition to the 230 ones already in the area.

District ward councillor Pamela Hawkins said: “We don’t have the infrastructure to sustain this sort of development.

“We will not cope with this amount of people moving into the area.

“Traffic backs up to Middle Deal. This is going to be made worse because of the extra housing’s traffic especially in the mornings when people are taking their children to school and coming home from work.

“As for flooding we all know how bad it is in Middle Deal. This is too much development in too small an area and I hope it doesn’t go ahead.”

Cllr Bill Gardner said: “Persimmon already have 230 homes so this would be 30% extra on the original amount.

“The roads couldn’t take the amount of traffic that could be generated.”

“At the moment there is nothing but fields, mud and grass to absorb water. How can you put that amount of tarmac, concrete and roofs there?

“People in Middle and North Deal are fed up with being flooded out and getting the square root of nothing.”

The committee again voted to defer decision on the application for more information on a traffic study by Persimmon and they want to further discuss flooding concerns.

They had deferred a decision in November as they awaited the results from the North Deal Study. The results were not available at the time of the meeting.