The Great Crested Newts of Staplehurst can sleep more easily in their beds tonight.

Maidstone council has rejected a housing proposal that would have seen all the newts and other reptiles on a water-logged field near the railway station snatched from their homes and taken to an undisclosed location.

Coombe Bank Homes had submitted an outline planning application seeking permission to build on the field off George Street. Although no detailed plans were submitted, an illustrative scheme suggested 16 houses and six flats would be built, of which 11 would be “affordable” homes.

There are 12 ponds in or close-by the field and the company had submitted a reptile survey that showed that the site was homes to slow worms, grass-snakes, lizards, smooth newts and significantly at least 22 adult Great Crested Newts, which are a protected species.

It proposed catching these over a 60-day trapping period and re-homing them elsewhere.

The council rejected the application because of concerns for the wildlife and also because the site was outside the limit to built development boundary of the village and because there was insufficient detail of the likely effects that would arise.