A development of 125 homes to the south of Tunbridge Wells at Ramslye Farm has been approved by Tunbridge Wells Borough Councillors.

The decision was described as “a really, really bad step” by campaigners concerned about the shortage of water in the town.

There are also serious concerns that the extra housing will worsen safety issues on the busy A26.

The site was called Spratsbrook Farm by developers but was known locally as Ramslye Farm and is bound by the back-garden fences of properties on Ramslye Road to the north and by Ramslye Farm Cottage (pictured below).

Members of the”Dry Wells Action”group had hoped that the planning committee would delay considering the house building plans in the light of new statements expected soon from South East Water on the company’s ability to supply water to new housing estates.

South East Water has apparently recently told the group there needed to be “an outbreak of the truth.”

Jonathan Hawker of Dry Wells Action told Southborough News that he expected new statements on water supply constraints from South East Water in the next 4-6 weeks and the committee should have put the application on pause to consider them.

But the Tunbridge Wells Planning Committee voted by 5 to 1 approve the plans on the land which is currently cultivated for food (see below).

Liberal Democrat Chris Digby from Paddock Wood was the single vote against.

The members of the public who attended were shocked by the fact that only 6 of the 11 members of the planning committee turned up for the decision, apparently because the meeting was called at short notice.

The developer, Dandara South East, says 40% of the homes will be designated as “affordable”.

There will be 27 two bedroom homes, 61 three bedroom homes and 33 four bedroom homes. An artist’s impression of the new estate is shown below.

The 21 acre site was allocated for residential development in the Borough Council’s Local Plan.

The development (shown below) would take up around 5 hectares of the land, with the rest being used as “an open field for public access and biodiversity”.

The western field of the site partially overlaps the Scheduled Ancient Monument of the Iron Age Hill Fort.

When asked for an explanation of the decision, the Borough Council made this statement: “The Planning Committee considered all the information presented to it before making its decision, including information relating to water supply alongside a range of other planning matters. Anyone who would like to understand how the decision was reached can watch the meeting and read the supporting papers on the Council’s website.”
https://democracy.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=377&MId=6117

Liberal Democrat Councillor, Jamie Johnson, (pictured below) who has lived in the area all her life said she was “very very upset about it.”

She told Southborough News that the developer had worked hard to engage the community. But she believed that the housing development should only have gone ahead if a roundabout had been part of the plans to slow traffic on the already busy and dangerous A26.

Jonathan Hawker from Dry Wells Action (pictured below) said: “Whilst we understand that local authorities are under pressure to approve new housing estates from a government desperate to kickstart the economy, it is bizarre that the Committee pressed ahead rather than wait for the South East Water letter.”

Jonathan Hawker argued: “Headline grabbing government housing targets do not add a single drop of water to our taps. It’s a simple point really and one the councillors should have grasped.”

Jonathan Hawker continued: “We have a fragile water infrastructure. Given an almost year-round hosepipe ban and repeat outages suffered by everyone in our community, which go beyond anything experienced anywhere else in the country, a water company in operational and financial distress that is losing 100m litres of water a day through leaks and which has yet to consider fully how to modernise Pembury Treatment Works, adding more homes requiring a water feed from the same creaking infrastructure is premature.”

Marianne Amos, from Dry Wells Action, had told the planning committee: “We have too few reservoirs. We have an ageing pipe network which South East Water says would require around £1.8 billion of investment to rectify.”

She continued: “Here in Tunbridge Wells, the system is already under severe strain. The company is only now trying to determine how to address the problems at Pembury Treatment Works. Blackhurst Lane reservoir is another critical constraint. When supply falls, or demand rises, its water level can drop to the point at which pumping is affected — threatening supply to around 7,000 pumped properties.”

Marianne Amos concluded: “This is not a resilient network with comfortable spare capacity. It is a network already struggling to supply the homes we have.”

Marianne Amos also quoted the chief executive of South East Water as saying that planning assumptions rely upon people reducing their water consumption by around 10 per cent. She said that hasn’t happened and South East Water has not even achieved a 3 per cent reduction.