Planning Minutes – 21st November 2022

PE52   DATE OF NEXT MEETING  

The next meeting will take place at 7.45 pm on Monday 5^th December, 2022, in the Day Centre, Commercial Road, Paddock Wood.

Meeting closed at 7.20

Annex

The Town Council object to the lifting of this planning condition on the following grounds:

• Southern Water have failed to implement foul sewerage network improvements commensurate with the level of development achieved by this and the two other major developments along with the substantial number of infill developments that have taken place in the several years  since planning permission was granted for this development.
• The Town Council has had numerous meetings with Southern Water and the local MP lobbying for improvements to address the fact that the current sewage network has insufficient capacity for the current connections let alone additional ones. Southern Water themselves at these meetings have confirmed that the network is at capacity and that the sewage treatment works is also at capacity and that there are no plans to increase the capacity at the WTW.  Southern Water have stated for both the Church Farm and Mascalls Court Farm developments that “…there is currently inadequate capacity on the local network to service the proposed development.” It would follow that Mascalls Farm can be no different as no noticeable asset improvement work has been undertaken anywhere in Paddock Wood since these applications were approved subject to conditions in December 2016.
• The foul drainage network across Paddock Wood regularly overflows in the streets and in residential dwellings, especially during period of wet weather. The Town Council considers this to be a significant health risk and a breach of the duties of Southern Water as a utilities provider. The WTW also overflows regularly and there are frequent sewage overflows into Le Temple Road and Dimmock Close when the pumping station at this location is overwhelmed.
• As the Town Council have maintained since this allocation was approved for development in the 2015 SALP no further development or connection to the foul drainage network should be permitted until an as built survey of the existing network and it’s capacity has been undertaken by Southern Water and measures taken to address the insufficiency. This has not taken place despite support from the local MP.
• It is not demonstrated in the application how the reinforcement by Southern Water  of the network consisting , as PWTC have been led to understand, of an oversize pipe installed under Ringden Avenue will accommodate the additional outflows from 313 dwellings.
• The Town Council are also concerned that the gradient from the development site over to the Ringden Avenue oversize pipe is insufficient to ensure sewerage flows in particular at times of peak flow.