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Seven months after Paddock Wood Town Council first submitted a planning application to create a new community centre for the town, it is expected to come before the planning committee at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council for decision shortly.
But the drive to build a new centre in Paddock Wood has been going on far longer.
A discussion around a proposal to build such a centre on the Memorial Field in Paddock Wood was first recorded in the council's minutes in 1977.
The problem has always been the twin issues of cost and of finding a suitable location.
Most residents agree that a community centre is sorely needed after the town's only other large hall - the parochial church hall - was demolished in the 1960s. But there is no agreement on where it should go.
The Town Council has investigated 10 possible sites, narrowed it down to three, and then to one - the Memorial Field, but that has not pleased a substantial portion of the community who argue the Memorial Field is a valued green space and does need to be urbanised with a new community centre over part of the land.
But the Town Council is adamant it has to be the Memorial Field - because of cost.
The council owns the field.
The cost of purchasing land anywhere else would take the project beyond financial viability, they say.
As it is, it will still cost £3.2m to build, which will mean taking out a pubic works loan of £1.9m as well as using all the available Section 106 money contributed by developers who are building in the area.
The council has had plans drawn up for the centre which show a large hall, capable of being divided into three, separate office space for hire, a cafe, and room for a children's pre-school.
Outside there is space for 46 cars and the opportunity to remodel the existing three junior tennis courts into two-full size ones.
The council argues that the development will take only 11% of the field's acreage, leaving room for a cricket pitch.
But any loss of green space is opposed by some residents who have banded together to form the Friends of the Memorial Field, and by Paddock Wood Cricket, an unofficial body, who want to see regular cricket restored to the town.
Both side claims to have the majority of the public behind them.
In January, 2019, the Friends of the Memorial Field ran an official Parish Poll that saw 409 people vote against using the Memorial Field, with 357 in favour.
Since then, however, the town council points to the result of a recent by-election in June just gone, when Jeremy Thompson, the chairman of The Friends stood for election on a No to the Community Centre ticket and was defeated by 248 votes to 306 by Andrew Mackie, for stood on a ticket in favour of the community centre.
Both sides see the situation worsening because of the enormous amount of development going on in Paddock Wood, and the even greater amount in the pipeline.
Work is under way on three approved sites that will add 1,000 homes to the town, and in addition Tunbridge Wells Borough Council is working on a new Local Plan that will send another 4,000 homes the town's way.
The Town Council argues this proves the need for the centre: the new residents will only add to the pressure for meeting rooms and nursery school places, but opponents say that as the countryside is covered with housing the few remaining green spaces like the Memorial Field will become even more important, and point to its heightened use during the Covid lockdown.
The argument has sometimes spilled over into ill-temper.
Cllr Derek Boyle, chairman of the council's estates committee, is a deputy head master in his day job. He said the constant complaints by opponents had been very wearing.
He said: "We have had people shouting the odds at us at committee meetings and both myself and the town clerk have suffered a series of abusive emails."
The dispute manifested itself this month in a row about the hire of a cricket pitch on the Memorial Field by Paddock Wood Cricket.
The cricketers asked to book the pitch for a charity game. The town council, mindful that that the last time the group had hired it two years earlier, they had used it as an opportunity to lobby the audience against the community centre, said Yes, they could book it provided, the group undertook not to use it as an opportunity for a political demonstration.
Paddock Wood Cricket declined to give such an undertaking but were angry when the council subsequently let the field to another team, the Sarudaya Royals, from Tunbridge Wells. Paddock Wood Cricket accused the council of cancelling their booking.
Cllr Boyle said: "They never had a booking."
He said: "They declined to give that undertaking and so no booking existed."
But John Haffenden, chairman of the cricketers' group, said: "Members were worried about the legal implications of giving such an undertaking. After all, we couldn't stop somebody else coming onto the field and talking about the community centre."
"We asked the council for clarification, but were told they had given the booking to someone else."
The cricketers turned up on the day of the Sarudaya Royals match and formed a ring around the pitch in silent protest, not, said Mr Haffenden, in protest against the community centre, but "in protest against the discriminatory way we've have been treated."
He said: "We are very disappointed with the way our Town Council has behaved."
"Why is cricket being discriminated against in this way? No other uses of the field have been asked to make such an undertaking."
If the protesters were to succeed in stopping the planning application now, it would still be at some expense to the town. The Town Council has already spent a lot of money on architect's and legal fees getting the application to where it is now.
Application 20/03848 refers.
