Tenterden Green Space Group – Update
FAO Tenterden Local Green Space supporters
Application 17/00708/AS for a 56-bed care home + 23 assisted living units to be built across the AB20 public footpath north of Westwell Court
We have already heard that numbers of you plan to attend the debate on this application in the Planning Meeting at the Ashford Civic Centre at 7.00pm on December 12th (wearing green to show solidarity for the cause!). So far no one has requested special transport, but several have offered lifts to others. So if you would like to attend and don’t have ‘wheels’ or the inclination to drive, please let me know and I’ll be glad to put you in touch with someone who has. Several people have expressed concerns about the form of the Planning Meeting and the fact that possibly only one resident will be permitted to speak. But rest assured our tirelessly and totally engaged West Ward Councillor, Kate Walder, is very much on the case. She will make sure as far as possible that the Borough Councillors who represent us present all aspects of our objections, and if she can, will speak herself. She has also undertaken to keep us in the loop. So I will tell you more in advance of the meeting.
Apart from being at the meeting to register our objections visually, we think that it would really help to send a personal emails to the three Borough Councillors who will represent us there. Their email addresses are: paul.clokie@ashford.gov.uk; mikebennettkm@tiscali.co.uk; callum.knowles@ashdord.gov.uk; and it’s fine to send a single email addressed to all three. If you do, it isn’t necessary to reiterate your reasons for objecting to the application (unless of course you wish to) but simply to quote the 17/00708/AS application number, and in your own words ask/beg/demand/insist that as representatives of the residents of Tenterden at the Dec. 12th Planning Meeting (i.e. as your representatives) they take account of your strong/resolute/determined objection to the application – and there’s every chance, we think, that a sufficiently impressive number of objections will influence the way they think!
In the meantime, on November 27th, our Tenterden Green Space steering group will be reporting on our work this year at an informal meeting with Town Councillors – at which we’re hoping to convince them of the need for the targeted Local Green Space Neighbourhood Plan we recommended, and you endorsed in numbers (250 pledges of support for it so far), at the Town Hall presentation and public discussion back in September. In advance of our report, we are supplying every Councillor with a copy of the presentation and a comprehensive information pack containing all the evidence they need to make an informed decision on the subject when they debate it later. There will of course be many further opportunities for public involvement in the initiative, and we will keep you fully in the picture as it progresses.
Richard Masefield
