All five housing schemes at Wednesday's Planning Committee are recommended for approval: 300 homes at Eccles, 65 at Kings Hill, 35 at East Malling.

Update, 28 September 2026. All five have now been decided: Eccles, Aylesford and Paris Farm approved, Kings Hill deferred, Town Hill refused. Read the decisions.

Update, 21 September 2026. The committee adjourned on 16 September without reaching two of these five applications. Paris Farm at East Malling and the Town Hill plots at West Malling go to a reconvened meeting on Thursday 24 September. The council has not yet published what it decided on the other three. Read the latest.

Tonbridge and Malling’s Planning Committee meets on Wednesday 16 September with five housing applications on the agenda. Together they cover up to 458 homes.

Officers recommend approval of every one.

None of the five sites is in Tonbridge town. They are at Eccles and Aylesford, Kings Hill, East Malling and West Malling.

What is on the agenda

Site Ward Homes Recommendation
Northern Fields, Bull Lane, Eccles Aylesford North and North Downs up to 300 Grant
MOD land south of Discovery Drive, Kings Hill Kings Hill up to 65 Grant
Land south of St Andrews Close, Aylesford Aylesford South and Ditton 50 retirement units Grant
Paris Farm, The Rocks Road, East Malling East Malling, West Malling and Offham 35 Grant
Land east of Town Hill, West Malling West Malling 8 self-build plots Grant

The big one: 300 homes at Eccles

The largest application is 9 hectares of farmland at Northern Fields, off Bull Lane, about 220 metres south of Eccles village. It is an outline application by Aylesford Heritage Limited for up to 300 homes, a community tennis and padel facility, and the first half of a new link road between Bull Lane and Rochester Road. Everything except access is reserved for later.

The site is provisionally allocated in the draft Local Plan as site AY1, one of the strategic allocations now out for public consultation until 25 October.

Affordable housing is the number to look at. Council policy CP17 requires 40 per cent. This scheme offers 8 per cent. That is 24 homes: six one-bedroom and ten two-bedroom affordable rent flats, and eight two-bedroom shared ownership flats.

The reduction is not contested by the council. The applicant’s viability consultant and the council’s own, Quintic Advisory LLP, both concluded that a policy-compliant 40 per cent scheme “is an unviable form of development”, because of build costs “particularly associated with the proposed link road and the delivery of Biodiversity Net Gain”. An external cost consultant was appointed to check. The officer report concludes the 8 per cent provision “is considered appropriate”.

Affordable homes at the Eccles scheme: policy against offer Council policy CP17 requires 40 per cent affordable housing, which on up to 300 homes is 120 affordable homes. The scheme offers 8 per cent, which is 24 affordable homes, agreed on viability grounds. The 35-home Paris Farm scheme on the same agenda offers the full 40 per cent. Source: reports of the Director of Planning, Housing and Regulatory Services to Planning Committee, 16 September 2026. Affordable homes at Northern Fields, Eccles Up to 300 homes. Policy CP17 requires 40 per cent; viability assessments agreed 8 per cent. Policy requirement, 40% 120 affordable homes Offered, 8% 24 affordable homes The gap is 96 affordable homes. For comparison, the 35-home Paris Farm scheme on the same agenda provides the full 40 per cent on site. Source: reports of the Director of Planning, Housing and Regulatory Services to Planning Committee, 16 September 2026. Graphic by Tonbridge Today
Policy asks for 120 affordable homes on a scheme of this size. Twenty-four are offered, on viability grounds agreed by the council's own consultant.

Fifteen letters of objection have been received, including one from an MP. The recurring themes are GP and dental capacity, school places, water and sewage, and Bull Lane itself, which objectors describe as narrow and constrained.

Aylesford Parish Council raised no objection at first, then objected. Its grounds include inadequate water supply, wastewater and sewage capacity, GP pressure, and the cumulative impact on Bull Lane. It asked for refusal until mitigation can be shown to be secured and delivered before occupation.

If approved, the section 106 agreement would carry £750,000 towards bus services, £13,920 to surface public footpath MR455A, and per-home contributions for education, healthcare, libraries, adult social care and waste. Occupation of a set number of homes would be restricted until the link road is delivered.

Water: the council’s lawyers have already answered the question

The Eccles report deals directly with the argument that stopped the Local Plan two weeks ago. Paragraph 7.250 records recent Counsel advice to the council that:

  • permission should not be refused where impacts can be made acceptable by conditions or obligations;
  • Grampian-style conditions are “an appropriate and lawful way to manage water infrastructure constraints”;
  • “there is no lawful basis for a pause or deferral of planning decisions because of water supply uncertainty”.

South East Water has raised no issues with the applicant’s water demand note and has asked for a Grampian condition, meaning building cannot start until suitable supplies are in place. The scheme is designed to 109.6 litres per person per day, against the 125 litres Building Regulations require.

The other four

Kings Hill, up to 65 homes. The agenda published last week described application 21/00881/OA as “eight residential dwellings”. That is wrong, and the council has issued a correction. A supplementary report confirms the description is “Development of up to 65 dwellings (all matters reserved other than access)”, and says it “has not changed since the application was submitted in 2021”. The committee already resolved to grant this in December 2024; it returns because the section 106 agreement is still in progress.

Aylesford, 50 retirement units. McCarthy and Stone’s part two, part three storey building on land south of St Andrews Close was deferred in August over parking. It comes back with 44 spaces, six more than the 38 originally proposed. Officers note that is still short of the 50 spaces that ordinary housing would need, but well above the standard for sheltered housing, and that the highway authority does not object.

Paris Farm, East Malling, 35 homes. Called in by Cllr Tatton because the site is not allocated in the existing Local Plan, and on the general principle of building on undeveloped countryside. Objectors argue prematurity: the borough has no up-to-date plan, and Paris Farm is not in the 2008 allocations document. This scheme does provide 40 per cent affordable housing on site.

Town Hill, West Malling, 8 self-build plots. Called in by Cllr Dean over housing delivery, the countryside location and the West Malling Conservation Area. It has drawn 23 objections and one letter of support. West Malling Parish Council objects, citing the rural approach to the town, the removal of part of a ragstone wall for pedestrian access from Town Hill, and the loss of green separation between West Malling and Leybourne. Objectors also note the site is a former burial ground.

What it means for you

The meeting is public and you can watch it. It starts at 7.30pm on Wednesday 16 September in the Council Chamber at Gibson Drive, Kings Hill.

  • To watch online, the council livestreams committee meetings on its YouTube channel. Recordings go up afterwards if a stream fails.
  • To speak, the council’s guidance says members of the public addressing the Planning Committee should attend in person, though online participation “can be considered in certain circumstances”. Contact Democratic Services at committee.services@tmbc.gov.uk.
  • Written comments on the applications go through the council’s planning search. Search the reference without the TM prefix, so 25/00925 rather than TM/25/00925/OAEA.
  • A recommendation is not a decision. Committees do refuse against officer advice here: that is what happened to the 1,300-home East Malling scheme in July, which the Secretary of State then took out of the council’s hands.
  • A reserve date is already booked. The council has a provisional Planning Committee on 24 September in case Wednesday’s meeting is adjourned.

We will report the decisions.

Sources