An application has been submitted to build nine detached homes on a former cricket pitch.

The proposed development is next to Hayle Place, off Teasaucer Hill in Tovil, Maidstone.

Drawings show houses of either two or two-and-a-half storeys, with four or five bedrooms, with detached two-vehicle car ports.

It is intended they will be all-electric – no gas – with heating provided from air-source heat pumps, and there will be an EV charging point for each property.

The plot measures 1.3 hectares and is classed as being in the countryside as it is outside the limits of the built development boundary of both Tovil and Loose parishes. It lies within Tovil.

It is also in the Loose Valley Conservation Area.

However, the applicant argues that as the site was last used as a cricket pitch, it counts as “previously developed” or brownfield land.

Cricket has not been played there since around 1990 and it has lain fallow for the last 30 years and returned to scrubland.

Vehicle access would be via Teasaucer Hill along the private road that gives access to The Manor at Hayle Place.

The applicants indicate a large part of the site will be left as amenity land.

Although it doesn’t say so in the application, it is understood the intention is to hand this land over to the Hayle Park Nature Reserve to maintain, which is nearby.

The Manor at Hayle Place is a mainly Georgian Grade II-listed mansion house with Elizabethan origins. It has been subdivided into flats.

To see more planning applications and other public notices for your area, visit publicnoticeportal.uk

Details of the cricket field plan can be viewed here.

Look for application number 23/504699

Tovil Parish Council has yet to consider the application.