Land next to a Morrisons store has been left looking like a ‘bombsite’ since plans to build homes on it were approved three years ago.

Now Essential Land, which owns the site in Sittingbourne, has applied to Swale council for a second time to change one of the conditions attached to it.

When the hybrid planning application was passed in 2012 it included the supermarket, 150 new homes – 30% of which were to be affordable housing, leisure and community buildings and a linear and waterside park at the Wharf site.

While the store opened in 2013 work is yet to start on the rest of the development.

Last November the firm applied for the amount of affordable properties to be cut to 10% with the £215,000 towards heritage schemes, agreed under a section 106 agreement, being dependent on the profits made from the housing development.

The company’s chief operating officer Martin Bellinger, argued that without the proposed changes, the development would not be viable.

In the end it was agreed just 3.3% of the homes needed to be affordable but that the open space had to be completed prior to the residential units being occupied.

Fast forward nine months and the business is now asking for the condition to be removed.

The move has angered Labour councillors Roger Truelove and Ghlin Whelan.

In a joint statement they said: “As local councillors we insisted that there could be no housing until the linear park and Waterside Park had been completed.

“Our thinking was that the site would never be regenerated, unless a lock was put on the housing.

“Now they are applying to remove the condition.

“At planning meetings Essential Land have sought to portray themselves as supporters of the town as contributors to the Spirit of Sittingbourne (the consortium which will carry out the town’s regeneration plans). The never ending derelict state of this site is poor testimony to this claim.”

To see the application in full visit pa.midkent.gov.uk/online-applications and search for 15/506681/FULL.