Garages on a 1960s housing estate could be knocked down and replaced with pre-fabricated housing.

Clarion Housing Group has submitted a planning application to Tonbridge and Malling council to tear down two blocks of garages at the rear of Tyler Close, in East Malling, and replace them with a terrace of three two-bedroom homes.

The plan is part of a wider scheme to do the same to three other garage blocks on the same Winterfield estate to create a total of 13 new homes.

Clarion is one of the county’s largest housing associations and already provides 7,000 social housing units across the borough.

The new homes will be manufactured off-site by a company called Edaroth and delivered for assembly in 29 panels.

One advantage is the shortened assembly time on site – only six weeks. But also the company says the new homes will match the highest energy efficiency standards with air heat pumps and photo-voltaic panels.

The current application is to provide three modular homes, each with two bedrooms, an open-plan lounge/diner, a small study room, a downstairs wet room and a family bathroom.

Some of the homes planned for the other three sites will be three-bedrooms.

The other locations are at Morris Close, Blatchford Close and Addison Close.

One immediate concern from neighbours is the loss of parking spaces.

But Clarion said that of the total of 64 garages across all four sites that will be demolished, only 26 are currently let, and some of those are used as storage facilities rather than to house cars.

At Tyler Close, where 14 garages will be lost, the plans show 11 parking spaces will be created with six spaces allocated to the occupiers of the three new homes, and five spare.

The homes will each be two-storey, as are the existing terraced homes around them. Vehicle access will be from Howard Road, but the new homes will each have a small garden with a pedestrian access from the footpath at the rear of the properties.

The application can be viewed on the council’s website here by searching for the reference number 23/00863.

Among those objecting to the scheme is a 71-year-old Tyler Close resident who puts his car in one of the garages only metres from his home.

He said that without the garage he feared a struggle to find a parking space and a potentially long walk that he would find difficult.