Children walking to school near new housing developments could be at risk unless safety measures are adopted, a public inquiry into a borough council’s local plan has heard.

Maidstone council's Local Plan Review, which will shape the future of the County Town and the surrounding areas, is currently the subject of a public inquiry.

Hearings were previously held in September, but were suspended when Maidstone council introduced a raft of new evidence during the sessions, with the inspector saying that nobody would have time to properly absorb the material.

David Spencer, the government planning inspector, has now resumed his examination of the council’s plans to shape development in the borough over the next 15 years, with two weeks of “live” hearings in the Town Hall, followed by one week of online evidence.

This time, Mr Spencer is drilling down into a number of individual sites put forward by the council and it was during a discussion of an allocation for 67 new homes on land off Ware Street in Bearsted that the allegation about pedestrian safety was made.

Ward Councillor Valerie Springett (Con) said that children from the proposed new site would have to cross the road three times if they were to stay on the footpath as part of their journey to Bearsted Station to get to school.

She said there was no bus service in the village to take them.

“There are no safe places to cross the road and it is not as though a pedestrian crossing can be installed because there are not sufficient sight-lines to put one in,” she explained.

In response, the council’s planning officers said that Kent County Council (KCC), the highways authority, had raised no concerns about the site allocation, but that gave Cllr Springett no reassurance.

She said: “I have no confidence whatsoever in KCC’s highways department following a recent appeal elsewhere and their activities.”

She was referring to the Bellway development at Church Lane in Otham, which the developer won on appeal, after offering to install traffic lights at the junction of Deringwood Road and Willington Street in mitigation.

KCC did not object to the lights at the appeal hearing, which allowed the application to be approved, but subsequently KCC forbade the developer from installing the lights because they would be too dangerous at the foot of two steep inclines.

Cllr Springett was supported by Cllr Peter Couling, representing the Kent Association of Local Councils, who said that he feared what would happen if there were ultimately a dispute between the borough council and any potential developer on what was needed to be done about access or highway issues.

He said: ”We would reallly want KCC to stand up and be counted for their views on what needs to be done in mitigation.

“But trying to pin down Kent Highways is like trying to nail jelly to the wall. It is impossible!”

The inspector also heard from objectors that the site would harm the setting of the Kent Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), a view disputed by council officers who said there was only limited views of the site from the AONB.

But Cllr Springett reminded the inspector that there had been in total four applications across two neighbouring sites either side of the allocation site, which had all been refused on appeal by other government planning inspectors because of the potential harm to the AONB.

She said: “I would hope that planning inspectors would offer consistency in their decisions (and that therefore Mr Spencer should refuse this site).”

Cllr Springett warned the inspector that if he were minded to retain the Ware Street allocation in the Local Plan, it would likely lead to both the previously refused sites being brought forward again.

“The development would not stop here,” she added.

That point also worried Malcolm Kersey, representing the Bearsted and Thurnham Society. He said: “Beasted is gradually moving west into Thurnham, while Maidstone is moving east towards Bearsted.

“The distance between the two places is shrinking rapidly.”

The inspector concluded that if the site stayed in the Local Plan, a full landscape assessment would be needed.

But he also said he would make a return visit to the area to assess the impact on the AONB for himself.