Our tiny village is being swallowed by 8,400 new houses and an enormous photo voltaic panel farm: Locals livid as Angela Rayner set to again big newbuild property in Kent countryside regardless of a whole lot of objections

NIMBYS in an idyllic English village have vented their fury at plans to surround them with a huge housing estate and a large solar panel farm.

Rodmersham, near Sittingbourne in Kent, has a population of just 555 people but faces being swallowed up by an 8,400-home estate and a solar panel farm the size of 106 football pitches. 

After the plans were revealed, locals and every neighbouring parish council submitted 700 letters of objection.

Yet although the local council said it was about to refuse the plans, Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Minister Angela Rayner called them in – effectively meaning she will have the final say on whether it goes ahead.

Locals slammed her decision and said they would up sticks if the massive development goes ahead.

Plumber Mark Elliot, 56, lives in Rodmersham but said he would leave the village if the homes were built.

He said: ‘It would just be sheer hell. It’s an invasion of the English countryside. I would leave and so would many other people. It makes absolutely no sense.

‘I know we need extra houses but let’s look at why we need them for a start and then sort that problem out. Not just keep building and building. We won’t have any green space left.

‘Angela Rayner seems hellbent on turning Britain into a giant housing estate. It’s madness. The sooner Labour go the better.’

Last month, Rayner vowed to ‘streamline’ planning rules for new homes in order to thwart local councils and other ‘Not In My Back Yard’ (NIMBY) protests from locals.

Voltalia UK said its plan for a huge solar farm the size of 106 football pitches would power up to 14,500 homes.  

Meanwhile, the developer behind the newbuild estate plan, Quinn Estates, is promising £200m of infrastructure but last year only made £22m, its latest accounts show.

This may fuel worries it will be a situation similar to nearby Ashford, which has seen the lead developer behind thousands of new builds go back on its promise to invest £50million in local services and infrastructure.

Although Hodson Developments signed a legally binding contract known as a Section 106 Agreement (s106) with Kent County Council, the developer has now claimed such funding has ‘ceased to be possible in the financial markets’ and would be ‘prohibitively expensive and self-defeating’ – a claim Kent County Council has said it will fight.

Monique Bonney, from Rodmersham Parish Council, said: ‘Do we really believe this infrastructure to be built first or they have the means to deliver it?

‘I think it is outrageous that developer promises in Section 106 agreements are often not delivered, watered down or dropped. 

‘The larger the scheme the bigger the risk. Huge amounts of time and money are spent creating complex agreements but no one is actually checking that developers on the hook have the money to stand behind these promises.

‘How can it be right that a speculator can sign up to a s106 for vast sums, millions of pounds and then they can flip it, s106 and all?

‘Then when it goes wrong, the authorities may well say they will go after the assigned developer but if it’s a man of straw, a limited company with few real assets, who picks up the bill? The taxpayer that’s who.

‘It’s utter madness that effectively companies with little financial standing are signing up to delivering millions of pounds of infrastructure. When the music stops the taxpayer ends up footing the bill. I really don’t think Labour understand that.’

Angela Hutchings, 69, who has lived in Rodmersham her entire life, said the housing plans were a ‘disgrace’.

She told MailOnline: ‘It’s a joke. I don’t think we will get any of the benefits or amenities we’re being promised as well.

‘It’s all a fairytale. The schools locally are packed and you can’t get an appointment at the doctors.

‘It’s shocking. I cannot see how thousands of homes are going to do anything other than just ruin the area. They don’t care.

‘The plans mean there could be an extra 24,000 cars at an estimate. That’s mass pollution and there simply isn’t the infrastructure to carry that out.’

Meanwhile, retired nurse Maureen Carlile, 66, described the plans as ‘pure greed’.

She said: ‘It’s awful. It will destroy the local villages here. The traffic will come to a complete standstill.

‘Nobody has thought about the wildlife either. The hospital waiting times are shockingly long, as are the wait for most things around here.

‘Thousands of extra homes will just make that all so much worse.

‘Where’s the local politicians? We never hear from them.’

Married couple Nicholas, 70, and Vicky Mayatt, 73, are also opposing the plans.

Retired occupational therapist Vicky said: ‘The plans are so vast. The developers promise the world with the local amenities and roads and a solar farm. But they should be made to develop them first.

‘I have read so many times that developers just complain the money isn’t there at the end and they hope people will forget. I fear that is what will happen now.’

Accountant Paul Oakley, 55, said he would leave the area if it went ahead.

He said: ‘The solar farm is just a fancy way of trying to get it through. I cannot see why that is needed. It’s just about creating buzz words. All they care about is housing and they don’t care that it will ruin our house prices. There are no positives.’

Teacher Teresa Dollellan, 58, has lived in local villages for 28 years and also opposed the plan.

She said: ‘It will just ruin everything. All that countryside and green space, gone.

‘The local schools are already overcrowded. We’re all suffering already because the area is overpopulated as it is, never mind about adding thousands more homes.’

Cllr Elliott Jayes, vice chair of Swale Borough Council’s Planning Committee, said: ‘The Secretary of State has called in the applications for land to the west of Teynham (21/503906/EIOUT) and land south and east of Sittingbourne (21/503914/EIOUT) and will now be determining them.

‘We will work closely with the Secretary of State as they make their determination, but we will robustly explain the council’s reasons for recommending refusal.

‘The planning committee meeting on November 7 still went ahead, and members of the committee discussed the council’s response to the Secretary of State’s request for information and we agreed with the officer recommendation for refusal.’

Regarding the solar panel farm, a Swale Borough Council spokesman said: ‘We have received the application which is currently being assessed before a decision is made.’ 

Robert Chamberlain, the project manager for Voltalia UK’s solar farm in Rodmersham, said: ‘Our proposals respond directly to the Climate and Ecological Emergency declared by Swale Borough Council in 2019, by providing renewable energy sufficient to power up to 14,500 local homes and by incorporating a range of measures to promote local wildlife and ecosystem health.

‘We are committed to working constructively with the council and all local stakeholders to minimise the potential impact of our proposals and to maximise local benefits.’

The Ministry of Housing refused to comment. Quinn Estates did not respond to a request for comment.