Residents concerned over plans to build 1,300 homes across 80 hectares of farmland near their village are being invited to discuss the proposal.

East Malling Trust is behind the scheme, for fields between Kiln Barn Road and Hermitage Lane in Ditton and East Malling.

The charity - which carries out research on crops and plants - also talks of a new village centre with a primary school; commercial, community and employment plots; a total of 29 hectares of public open space, to include a 2.5 hectare community park, plus children’s play areas (planning application number 24/00372).

There are also plans to demolish part of the listed wall at New Road in the village to accommodate changes to the existing road through the research site (planning application number 24/00392).

East Malling and Larkfield Parish Council has yet to submit its views to the borough as it wants to hear from residents first.

It has arranged a meeting in the village hall in New Road, East Malling, at 3pm this Sunday, April 28.

Two of the access routes will be on to Hermitage Lane, close to Barming Station.

There will also be two accesses to the east - via Kiln Barn Road and via Chapel Street.

The proposal is not entirely new.

The East Malling Trust put forward the land as a suggestion for the last Tonbridge and Malling Local Plan, but that blueprint was rejected by government inspectors.

To be known as Bradbourne, the new community would have its own two-form primary school.

The parish chairman, Cllr David Thornewell (Lib Dem), said: “There is a great deal of concern - particularly about the traffic implications.

“The new homes would access on to Hermitage Lane and people have expressed concerns about getting to Maidstone Hospital (which is on Hermitage Lane) as the perception is that the road is already heavily congested.

“But people are also worried that the plan includes access into East Malling village. They wonder where that traffic could go?

“The roads here and already narrow with width restriction and a height restriction on the railway bridge.”

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Ditton Parish Council held a similar meeting for its residents earlier this month that was attended by around 240 people.

No-one there spoke in favour of the plans.

Subsequently, Ditton Parish Council drew up a list of 14 substantial grounds for refusal of the application based on residents’ comments.