A house builder is arguing a few metres of kerb laid three years ago is enough to say work has started on a 62-home development - so it doesn’t need planning permission again.

It is more than 11 years since Chailey Homes first submitted an outline application to Maidstone council, seeking permission to build 62 homes on land off Postley Road in Tovil near Maidstone.

The site is actually on one side of the single-width track which runs from Redstart Avenue, past the Richmond Way green space, past the entrance to the bungalow known as The Lodge, and heads towards Hayle Place.

Chailey Homes went on to gain approval for a detailed plan in December 2019 but never completed the scheme.

It was a condition of the original planning permission that work on the development must start within two years - which would have been before December 20, 2021.

Four days before that deadline, Chailey Homes had contractors lay kerbing at the entrance, extending for 35 metres. The road surface was not addressed and no further work was carried out.

It is believed that part of the problem was a dispute over the ownership of the land that gave access to the site.

Chailey Homes has since sold the plot to a new developer, Tonbridge-based Aile Homes.

The company has submitted an application to Maidstone council for a certificate of lawfulness, claiming a “material start” has been made on the development since permission was given.

If granted, the firm will avoid having to go through the whole planning process again.

The original application received 110 individual letters of objections, plus objections from the three ward councillors and both Loose and Tovil parish councils.

The council’s own conservation officer had also objected because of the “adverse effect” the development would have on the Grade II listed Hayle Park manor house nearby.

Ian Chittenden (Lib Dem) is the Kent County Council councillor for the North East Maidstone division. He said: “The very tiny amount of work that was done is a long way from constituting a ‘material start’.

“I should be very disappointed - and surprised - if the planning officers allow this application.

“This is a very sensitive location in the countryside, next to the Hayle Park Nature Reserve.

“It needs proper and careful consideration.”

“Many things have changed since this application was first introduced a decade ago, and there are new policies and considerations to be taken into account.

“The site needs a new planning application.”

The 2.6 hectare plot, which lies behind the bungalows of Richmond Way is within an Area of Local Landscape Importance, and is partly in the Loose Valley Conservation Area.

However, it was allocated for development in the council’s recent Local Plan Review.

Find out about planning applications that affect you at the Public Notice Portal.

Details of the application can be seen on the council’s website under application number 24/50353.

The original outline application was 13/2038 and the approved detailed application was 19/503702.