Gas Works Site

A big new housing estate in Sevenoaks has been approved despite parts of it being likened to a cluster of boils.

The former gas works on Cramptons Road, Sevenoaks, has been earmarked for development for several years.

The estate will have 136 homes and includes a ten story structure.

More than 500 objections from the public were officially registered against the plans with residents insisting “it’s not Lewisham, or Bromley, it’s Sevenoaks”.

But despite protestations from neighbours it was narrowly approved by the area’s district council last week (November 7) which acknowledged the pressing “housing supply” need.

Southern Gas Networks (SGN) had demolished the gas holder cylinders at the site in 2019 after being decommissioned since the 1990s.

Shortly after they applied for permission for 136 homes on the site, spread across townhouses and blocks of flats – but most controversially a 30 metre, ten storey block called the ‘rotunda’, as an adage to the former cylinders.

Steve Sanham, speaking on behalf of the gas company, told the council’s development management committee: “National policy rightly encourages the efficient use of land like this in order to protect from urban sprawl into the green belt. If not here, then where?

“No longer will there be a dingy public alleyway across a wasteland, passers-by will walk through a new unfenced open space.”

The plans will bring an unused site into “meaningful use”, providing 136 homes that Sevenoaks so “desperately needs in one go”, he added.

However, Steven Jenkinson, from the Bat & Ball Residents Association, told the committee while they agreed on the need for new homes they objected to the scheme.

He described the rotunda building as “a ten storey brick tower which will sit on our skyline like a monolith”.

“Sunlight could pass through the gas towers, and there was no one looking at you in your own garden,” he added.

The rotunda will contain 67 flats, with the north block hosting 40, the south block housing 19 flats, and there will be 10 townhouses.

Cllr Merilyn Canet (below) of Sevenoaks Town Council also slated the plans, saying “It will indeed be a landmark, a carbuncle on the landscape”.

Planning officers were recommending members back the plans, with one stressing: “it’s a brownfield site, it’s under utilised land and we have an acute need for housing.

And not everyone objected to the appearance of the plans.

Cllr Nigel Williams (Con), who spoke in favour of the designs, said: “I like the rotunda, most people probably don’t.

“I personally think it’s quite a nice design, giving a hint back to history with the tower.”

However most were less enthusiastic in their praise of the scheme’s designs.

Many disliked the design of the rotunda, with Cllr Kim Bayley (Con), saying it “resembles something out of east Germany.”

“We’re being asked to ignore the local plan completely just because we need additional homes and ten storeys really is very high for Sevenoaks,” she added.

Cllr Victoria Granville (Lib Dem), said: “If this had been designed in any other way I’d probably be much more supportive of it”.

“I think it’s really horrible harking back to a great big container filled with poisonous gas. I  wouldn’t want to live in it and I really feel for people living round there having to look at it.”

“Our desire and need for housing should not override good design and sympathetic design,” argued Cllr Susan Camp (Lib Dem).

Despite advising his colleagues to back it, Cllr James Barnett (Con) said: “We’re not going to be able to defend it if it goes to appeal.”

One member of the public shouted from the balcony, as the chair repeatedly told him to be quiet and sit down: “This is Sevenoaks, it’s not Lewisham, not Bromley, it’s Sevenoaks, remember that.”

The development also includes more than £400,000 in contributions towards local education, and £2.2million to other local services, but only eight homes on the estate will be marketed as affordable.

Sevenoaks District Council has long failed to meet its housing targets, with an average of only 263 built per year from 2020 – 2023, when their target was 704 a year.

Now, under the new government’s revised target calculations as part of planning reforms, they could face an even greater target of 1,114 new homes a year.

The district is made up of 92% green belt, but some of that may need to be built on to hit the targets.

The committee was split by seven votes to seven on the redevelopment of the former gas holders site, but chairman Cllr Gary Williamson (Con) used his casting vote to approve the plans.

A spokesman for the council said: “The scheme was extensively debated and considered at the Development Management Committee on November 7.

“It was noted that the crucial redevelopment of this brownfield and allocated housing site in Sevenoaks town would provide benefits for local people, including some affordable homes and the provision of new public amenity space as well as providing a valuable contribution towards the council’s housing supply.”