Maidstone Borough Council was given a roasting at the public examination into its Local Plan today by Faversham and Mid Kent MP Helen Whately.

Giving evidence to the Government planning inspector at the Town Hall, Mrs Whately said the council had failed to take account of the constraints to building faced by the borough and could not meet its housing target of 18,560 new homes without serious adverse effects on the quality of life of existing residents.

She said: “I represent 13 of the 26 wards in Maidstone Borough, and over 40% of the population.

”My constituents are enormously concerned. I have received hundreds of representations – letters, emails, and visits to my advice surgeries.

“There are few topics which have aroused such a volume of concern.”

Mrs Whately told the inspector Robert Mellor that Maidstone’s “objectively assessed housing need” was the highest of any borough in Kent and in addition the burden of new homes was falling disproportionately on its rural villages with Headcorn marked to expand by 27%, Harrietsham by 28% and Lenham by 110%.

She said: “Understandably, residents are seriously worried about the impact this will have.”

She said the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework required authorities to meet their housing need targets only if there were no significant adverse impacts.

She then went on to list the adverse impacts Maidstone’s plan would have: on traffic congestion, with the borough failing to agree a transport plan with KCC the highways authority; on sewage, with the current sewerage system already failing to cope in villages like Headcorn, and on the countryside with a great loss of valuable agricultural land.

Mrs Whately said Maidstone’s transport plans relied on “unrealistic expectations for people to switch from cars to other modes of transport” and failed to take any account of the proposals for a new Thames Crossing.

On sewage, she cited the case of an elderly Headcorn constituent who was already having raw sewage bubble up in his garden.

She said: “He is at the end of his tether and his is not an isolated incident.”

Mrs Whately said that Maidstone was proposing that 84% of its new housing would be on green field sites.

She questioned whether the borough had consulted widely enough with other boroughs where brownfield sites were available for development.

Asked by the inspector what specific changes she sought to the Local Plan, Mrs Whately said the proposed industrial land allocation at Woodcut Farm near the M20 junction 8 at Hollingbourne should be deleted.

She said: “This is not an appropriate location for a large industrial site.

”It is detached from the built-up area, meaning employees would likely have to access it by car adding to congestion and pollution.”

She said the site was an integral part of the landscape and “an industrial development there would blight the approach to Leeds Castle, a national heritage asset attracting half a million visitors a year.”

The MP also took issue with council’s allocation of gypsy and traveller sites.

She argued first that the borough had failed to take into account the Government’s latest definition of what constituted a gypsy or traveller, resulting in an over-estimate of the number of pitches needed.

Secondly, having failed to find sufficient pitches to meet its inflated need, the council was prepared to rely on windfall sites to make up the numbers.

She said: “Time and again we are seeing permissions (for gypsy sites) granted, and though temporary, they are then re-granted when the temporary period expires.

"We are seeing permissions granted on the grounds of a lack of five-year supply, but this is leading to the expansion of traveller sites in totally inappropriate locations, where we know planning permission for residential development would not be granted.

“In fact, that is the reason permanent permission has not been given.“

Mrs Whately said: “The council must take steps to bring this situation under control – through a reasonable, assessed need and by identifying suitable sites. The Local Plan is the time to do that.”

In its defence, Maidstone council said that it had sought more gypsy sites through a Call For Sites process, but that landowners had been reluctant to put forward their land for that purpose.