Frequent power cuts, a blackspot for mobile signal, water leaks that last for months and homes running on petrol generators.

The village of Iwade, near Sittingbourne, may look like the modern family idyll, but residents say it is like living in the Dark Ages. Reporter Joe Crossley went to see for himself…

With its community feel, estates of attractive new-build homes, and good transport links you can see why estate agents describe Iwade as a highly-sought after area.

With average house prices at £364,000 – £68,000 more than in its neighbouring town of Sittingbourne – families are paying a premium to enjoy life in one of Kent’s fastest growing villages.

It has everything you might want – a parade of shops, primary school, pub, health centre and lush green spaces.

But despite seeing its population quadruple in size in the last 20 years, and with hundreds more houses on the cards, it appears it has been somewhat left behind when it comes to basic infrastructure.

This became apparent almost as soon as I had cycled past the Iwade sign – immediately I lost mobile signal.

I pulled up on the side of Grovehurst Road to search for Brookfields housing estate, my first port of call, on Google Maps but quickly began to regret my reliance on 21st Century technology.

Not knowing the area well I had no clue where I was going. It had me wondering where I might be able to purchase an old school paper map.

Fortunately I bumped into Nutmeg Crescent resident, Claire Gallagher, who was walking her dog.

She told me I was in the right area and that she struggles to get mobile signal anywhere in the village.

The 50-year-old described living in Iwade as “like being in the Dark Ages”.

She said: “We always have drivers stopping and asking for directions because their sat navs stop working.

“The electricity has gone off around eight times during the last year.”

At this point to test the mobile signal I tried to make a call back to the office, but I got absolutely nothing.

This sounds like a First World problem, but aside from the inconvenience, there must be safety implications to this sorry signal.

How could you call for help in an emergency?

“The electricity has gone off around eight times during the last year...”

How would you keep in touch with your kids if they didn’t come home on time?

What if your car broke down or you had an accident?

And from a commercial perspective, it is costing people money.

I spoke to a business owner who said the phone lines were “massively disrupted” and that when the signal drops out it can cost them customers.

This is something Cllr James Hunt (Con), who has lived in Iwade since 2012, pointed out.

He said: “Mobile signal has always been really bad here which is not good for businesses and people who work from home.

“The parish council has tried to do various things but they haven’t worked.

“You’d think with the 5G roll-out and with the new houses being built that mobile signal would be something that would be looked at.

“I have looked through the planning documents in the past and there is nothing that says mobile phone companies have to be consulted by planners.”

Mark, who has lived on Pintail Drive for five years, told me he has to make phone calls by hanging out of a window.

He said: “I don’t even bother sending text messages and phone calls.

“People in the village mainly use WhatsApp but if you are out in the village there's no chance of communicating.

“It’s a real nightmare.”

After some difficulty getting there, I was finally on the Brookfields estate. It is here that residents have been faced with another problem with utilities – this time power.

Regular electricity outages over the last six months have left residents in the dark for hours at a time.

But when the mains have been damaged, the solution has been to install large diesel-powered temporary generators.

Cllr Roger Clark, who lives in Pearl Blossom Drive and represents Iwade on Swale council, called for the utilities company to fix the supply so the village didn’t have to rely on “Mickey Mouse power”.

He said: “At first there was a blowout here and a blow up there, and it’s just kept going to the point where something needs to be done because we can’t live like this.

“The outages can last for about six hours sometimes, for weeks and months in a row, and that’s tough because you have to really wrap up during the winter and be careful when it’s dark coming down the stairs.

“We never know when the outages are going to come.”

UK Power Networks said the issues were caused by faults on the cables and that, if other sections are affected, it will look to replace them.

Meanwhile, resident Richard Leicester described the sound of the generators to being like living next to an airport runway.

He said: “The constant on and off of the generators also blew household appliances including laptop chargers, pond pumps and mobile phone adapters leading to hundreds of pounds worth of damage.

“We all remain unaware of the cause, or when it will finally be resolved, as there remains no communication by any of the power companies.

“We are suffering directly as a result of living in a village which has seen the largest expansion in new-build property builds in recent years.”

Iwade has grown massively over the last 15 years.

In Swale Borough Council’s 2008 Local Plan, more than 400 homes were approved for the village in what was called the Iwade Development Brief.

Developers Hillreed Homes gained permission to build 327 homes on the land to the south west, in the vicinity of Coleshall Farm back in November 2009.

Meanwhile the land to the east of the village was marked out for development of 117 homes but has since seen plans approved more recently in July 2022 for 450.

The Brookfields estate at 140 houses strong, was a large part of plans for south-west development. It was built by Persimmon Homes back in 2014 and then added to until 2017.

Cllr Clark said that the hundreds of houses built since he came to office in 2015 had made “life unbearable.”

He said: “In 2015 Iwade was a lovely little village but then the developers came and built hundreds of homes. It’s not a village anymore it’s more of a town.”

I continued my door knocking and made my way onto Alefe Way where I spoke to Rynn Kemp who has lived in Iwade for more than a decade.

The 73-year-old was complimentary about the village itself, but said there was not the proper infrastructure.

He said: “The village is a great place to live with a great community.

“There are local pubs and walks in the country side so I really do love living here.

“But there are problems. The village has had water leaks recently possibly because of the weight of new people which have cracked the pipes.

“They are developing more houses but there doesn't seem to be the infrastructure which needs to come first. We have to go to the dentist in Whitstable.”

One of the leaks he mentions has been going on for more than a year.

Three-way traffic lights have been installed at Ferry Road and a large hole dug, but Southern Water says it is having difficulty identifying the source of the problem.

It means residents are complaining of delays of around 15 minutes when they try to use the route.

After navigating the lights, I managed to get back into the centre of Iwade, and to a popular little cafe called Mews Brewhouse.

There I got talking to some customers who told me of their experiences of living in the village.

They were saying they have to pay for the most expensive internet packages to be able to access reliable wifi, but even then ultrafast full fibre connections are not available in the area.

As I rode out of Iwade, I could see why people were flocking to live there. It’s a typical Kent village with a community feel that you lack in larger towns.

But the numbers of homes sprouting up are clearly outpacing the infrastructure, particularly leaving people in the lurch when it comes to power and connectivity.

Why then such a lack of urgency in getting services improved?

Maybe it’s because of the awful phone signal that villagers’ voices are simply not being heard.

There is hope on the horizon, in that respect however.

Cllr Clark said there are now discussions about building a phone mast in the heart of the village, which he hopes will help solve the signal problems.

But will this be enough to bring Iwade into the 21st century?

What is for certain is that it doesn’t look like the building will be stopping anytime soon.

As I left construction was taking place in the latest development to pop up, Orchard Meadows, which will see another 60 homes off Sheppey Way.

You’ll just need a paper map to find them.