A local developer has tonight won planning permission for a 572-home residential complex and new sporting facilities on the former Herne Bay Golf Club site.

Quinn Estates had previously had an application for the 100-acre plot turned down.

But councillors tonight voted unanimously in favour of the scheme, with the decision met with a round of applause from a crowd of supporters in the Guildhall.

The plans include 572 homes, commercial office space and football, hockey and cricket pitches.

Resubmitted proposals had received 1,200 letters of support – the vast majority using a template created by Quinn Estates – and just four objections.

Mark Quinn has said: “What we’re giving away – the sports pitches and changing rooms – is worth £20 million.

“I want a common-sense approach. We want to be allowed to develop houses in an area which desperately needs them.

“People need to take a more positive approach to development. They need to realise that unless land is released to be used for housing, their children will have nowhere to live. You cannot take the attitude ‘not on my patch’.”

Mr Quinn says he is in talks with three companies looking to move into the 45,000sq ft of commercial space, about the same size as Estuary View business park in Whitstable.

It will create 1,000 jobs although Mr Quinn estimates it will can create up to 5,000.

Had the plans failed, the company has appealed the original rejected planning application, which has a hearing due for November 4.

If that were to have also been turned down then the scheme would have gone back to the drawing board, wasting more than £1 million Quinn Estates has spent on planning, consultations and maintaining the land, which it has owned for four years.

Mr Quinn said: “We budgeted nowhere near that. We can’t continue to take cost and not put into action what we are offering.”