Planning permission for development including more than 500 homes, a retirement village and a 130-bedroom hotel, partly on a historic site near Dover, is under attack from campaigners at the Planning Court.
The Kent branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (“CPRE Kent”) is hoping to persuade Mitting J to quash Dover district council’s April 2015 decision to approve the development on non-contiguous sites at Farthingloe and Western Heights – the latter the site of historic forts designed to protect the country from invasion.
CPRE Kent claims that the council wrongly had regard to a possible £5m contribution to heritage enhancements at Western Heights, which had no direct connection to Farthingloe, where extensive residential development will, they say, cause considerable harm to the landscape of the Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty.
It says that the authority misapplied national policy on AONBs, and wrongly treated housing need as an exceptional circumstance justifying development in the AONB.
Planning permission was granted to China Gateway International in April for development including up to 521 residential units and a 90-apartment retirement village at Farthingloe, up to 31 residential units at Western Heights and an additional nine through reconstruction of Victoria Hall, as well as a hotel and conference centre of up to 7,400 sq m and conversion of the Drop Redoubt, one of the two forts on Western Heights, to a museum and visitor centre.
The Queen (on the application of CPRE Kent) v Dover District Council Planning Court (Mitting J) 15 December 2015
