A campaign group will be reinstated after threats of housing developments.

Save Fant Farm will be re-set up in a bid to challenge plans for more than 915 houses off Gatland Lane in Maidstone.

A public meeting, with Fant ward councillors and 100 residents, was held last night to discuss Maidstone Borough Council's plans.

The local authority is in the process of reviewing its Local Plan, which sets out development targets in the borough. When it was complete in 2017, the target was 17,660 homes by 2031.

But during the re-assessment the government has stipulated a new formula, which could see this rise to 28,000 homes by 2037.

Three sites in Fant are primed for development.

Gleeson Homes has submitted three options to develop either some or all of the site. The largest option proposes 750 homes - 525 more than was previously rejected by the Government inspector.

In addition, two adjacent plots have also been submitted by their respective owners as possibilities for development: land at Half Yoke, bordering Gatland Lane and Farleigh Lane, submitted by the Warbleton charity for 75 homes, and the Homewood Orchard Garden Centre - which most people will know for Bill Stevens Christmas trees - put forward for 90 homes.

At the meeting last night, the group unanimously voted against the proposed plans.

Gareth Owen, chairman of the Save Fant Farm petition group, which previously saw off development in the area in 2017, agreed to restart the campaign which disbanded in December 2018.

He said: "We will resurrect ‘Save Fant Farm’ to do what it says on the tin. This fight is likely to be a marathon and not a sprint.”

Cllr Paul Harper, who led the consultation, said: “In Fant we have shown that we can defeat the developers, the community is up in arms over the latest proposals.

"I pledge to work with you to help stop all these attacks on our countryside.

"If they succeed then the whole of the countryside from Farleigh Lane to Hackney Road and Unicumes Lane would be built on.

"When I moved the Maidstone more than 12 years ago, what I liked was being able to walk from home to the countryside around Fant Farm and Hermitage Lane, I still do, but the countryside is receding.

"The Medway Valley is a green lung bringing the countryside from beyond Barming right up to the Bower Lane Bridge, we will fight to keep it.”

Cllr Keith Adkinson, also at the meeting, said: “When we defeated the previous developers at a planning appeal in 2018 I thought we would hopefully have five to 10 years respite, I never believed that they would be back in under two years, and this time on a bigger scale.

"We will work to stop this assault on our loved fields and countryside.”

Over the next couple of months three Fant councillors will be preparing and collecting a petition - visiting every house hoping to collect over 1,000 signatures.

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