A booking system brought in to marshal visitors to a public consultation on a controversial garden village was abandoned amid low attendance.

The first of three events to allow people to give their views on hotly contested plans to build a 5,000-home garden village at Lenham Heath was held at the Great Danes Hotel in Hollingbourne yesterday.

It was hosted by Maidstone Borough Council and by Homes England, partners in the Heathlands Garden Village concept, and visited by fewer than 40 people over six hours.

It meant visitors were generally outnumbered by the team of experts from Homes England and the council, who were waiting to answer their questions.

The reason for the low attendance is unclear, since there has been much heated public debate over the scheme.

Lenham Cllr Janetta Sams had warned in advance that many people would not want to make the seven-mile journey from Lenham to Hollingbourne, especially on a Sunday when the available bus service came only once every two hours.

On the other hand, Save Our Heathlands (SOH), the protest group set up by residents to oppose the project, claimed that almost all of the 6,000 leaflets that Maidstone council said it was distributing to local residents in advance to advise them of the consultation dates had failed to arrive.

David Ing of the PR company Fabrik that is handling publicity for the project told KentOnline that as far as he was concerned all the leaflets had gone out.

He suggested a reason was that some might favour the last of the three consultation events, being held on Wednesday in the Lenham Village Centre, closer to the site.

The poor attendance meant that the booking system that had been introduced for the event, with visitors obliged to earmark a 10-minute slot for their arrival, was abandoned.

Those that did attend were greeted first by a 'Say No to 5,000 More Homes' poster strategically placed by protestors at the hotel entrance.

Inside the exhibition, held in the Heart of Kent Suite, there were 12 display boards about the proposed development.

The Homes England community engagement manager, Tom Hustler, said: "I understand why people are suspicious. They probably think we are like some developers, just keen to build homes, make as much profit as possible and run."

But he said: "That is not the case, we are here for the long term and will be working with this project for probably the next 20 years."

He said a big difference between Homes England's involvement and that of the ordinary private developer is that Homes England will commission all of the infrastructure for the project itself, and ensure that it is in place before construction of the homes even begins.

That includes all the roadways, with two new accesses onto the A20 with roundabouts.

Thereafter, it will licence out parcels of land to private developers but on a leasehold-only basis initially to ensure that the developers deliver the quantity, style and quality of homes agreed beforehand. If the developers attempt to deviate from the agreed scheme, Homes England can claw the land back.

The freehold is only passed over after the homes are built.

This will also protect against developers buying a parcel of land just to stick in their land bank, without delivering the homes.

William Cornall, Maidstone council's director of regeneration and place, explained that of the 300-hectare site, half - 150 hectares - would remain as open space.

Of that, approximately one third - 47 hectares - would be a country park placed at the southern end of the development. There would also be a town park in the centre of the community.

There would in addition to the homes be an area dedicated for employment uses, which he predicted would be mostly light industrial or office space.

The aim was to create 5,000 jobs on site - one job for every house to be built, though some would be in the shops and cafes that would form part of the community.

Mr Hustler said the need for more housing in Maidstone was undeniable. He said: "Across the country, the average ratio of house prices to average income is seven times. In Maidstone it is 14 times."

A large concern of objectors is the effect of additional traffic on the local road network, but Mr Hustler said the new village would be designed on a 15-minute principle.

All the facilities, the shops, cafes, country park, recreation area, school and employment hubs would be within 15 minutes' walk of anywhere else on the estate, which he hoped, would persuade many householders to abandon single-use car journeys.

In addition, Maidstone council is still hoping to convince Network Rail to create an additional rail station within the new village.

Mr Cornall conceded that the decision on this was out of the borough's hands, all they could do was to make the business case to Network Rail.

But he said that if the station idea did fall through, it would not be the end of the project.

He said: "There are other options we could pursue."

With both Lenham and Charing having a station on the same line just a few miles in either direction, one solution might be the creation of a dedicated bus corridor to one or other of the other stations, allowing Lenham Heath commuters easy access to the rail network.

The project will provide a new primary school and space is being allocated for a new secondary school if Kent County Council decides that is what is needed. Otherwise, the housing developers will be obliged to pay Section 106 money towards the expansion of existing local secondary schools.

A total of 40% of the new homes will be affordable housing, and Maidstone council will retain the right to take those on itself.

So far around 40% of the landowners whose land is earmarked for the scheme have signed option agreements with the council.

Mr Hustler urged everyone with an interest to attend a consultation event. He said: "We want to hear from everyone so that we can devise the best possible scheme.

"Even those objectors who don't want to see any housing at all should still come and talk to us, so that they can get - from their point of view - the least worst scheme."

There is another consultation running today at the Great Danes until 6pm, an online event tomorrow, Tuesday, and a consultation in Lenham itself on Wednesday between 2.30pm and 8pm.

To book a slot, click here.