News Release
KIG Appeal validated
The Government’s Planning Inspectorate has
validated KIG’s appeal to have the Secretary of State determine the
application for a rail/road freight interchange on a 112 hectares
site at Bearsted, following a public inquiry.
KIG submitted the application, which included
more than 20 documents and a large two volume environmental impact
assessment, in October 2007 but it was only in January 2009 that it
supplied some of the additional information needed to determine the
application.
It appealed the application while local people
were still commenting on the additional information. More
than 3,500 people have commented on the proposals since it was
first registered in 2007.
Director of Prosperity and Regeneration,
Alison Broom, says the council will still consider the
comments. “KIG has only recently supplied some of the
information we requested so it is disappointing that they have
appealed. The planning committee will consider the comments
submitted by local people and others before it decides its position
on the proposal. Representatives of local people will have a
chance make their views known to the inspector.”
The appeal was validated by the Planning
Inspectorate on February 23 and Maidstone Borough Council has six
weeks until April 6 to hold a planning meeting to decide how it
would have determined the application and then to submit a written
statement setting out its case to the planning inspectorate.
Alison Broom says the venue for the planning
committee meeting will accommodate as many people as possible to
hear the debate. The meeting will be webcast live on the
Council’s website – http://www.digitalmaidstone.co.uk/.
Full details of the meeting will be announced next week.
The council’s report will be available from
March 23 on the website and at the Maidstone Gateway, King Street;
the Town Hall, Middle Row, Maidstone; Libraries and parish
councils.
The Planning Inspectorate may change these
timescales because the Secretary of State has decided to determine
the application rather than leave the decision to an inspector.
Date:
March 4, 2009
Ref:
RJA/090304