Loose Parish Council's draft plan to 2038 protects 51 green spaces and 18 views and sets terms for 300 homes at Pested Bars. Comments close 23 October.

Loose Parish Council is asking residents to comment on a new neighbourhood plan that would guide building and land use across the enlarged parish until 2038. The consultation opened on 10 September and closes on Friday 23 October 2026.

Loose is a village about two miles south of Maidstone town centre. Its parish grew in May 2024, when it absorbed most of the former North Loose parish. That left it with two neighbourhood plans covering different halves of the same council area. The draft plan replaces both with one document.

Two public sessions are still to come, both at Loose Parish Pavilion, King George V Playing Field, Walnut Tree Lane, ME15 9RG:

  • Tuesday 29 September: drop-in from 2.30pm to 5pm, then a presentation on the draft plan at 7.30pm (doors 7pm)
  • Sunday 4 October: drop-in from 2pm to 4.30pm

What the plan would protect

The draft runs to 23 policies, numbered LNP1 to LNP23. The parish council’s own summary is that it safeguards green space and views, sets design expectations, protects heritage and supports local shops. The specifics:

  • 51 Local Green Spaces. Policy LNP11 designates 51 sites, and says development on them will be treated as it would be in the Green Belt. The list includes the Carlton Gardens allotments, Regent Drive green, Loose Bowls Club and the verges on Richmond Way. Six of the 51 were already protected by the two older plans.
  • 18 locally significant views, under LNP12, including the view east from the A229 viaduct, views across the Loose Valley from footpaths KM50, KM51 and KM52, and the long view north to the North Downs from footpath KM63.
  • No merging with the neighbours. LNP1 says development must not cause the parish to join up physically or visually with Mangravet, Coxheath or Boughton Monchelsea.
  • Village shops. LNP13 resists the loss of shops and other centre uses at the Village Green, Boughton Parade and Wheatsheaf Parade unless a business can show it is no longer viable after a genuine attempt to market it.
  • Dark skies, renewable energy and air quality each get a policy of their own.
Facts panel: the draft Loose Neighbourhood Plan 2025 to 2038 has 23 policies, designates 51 Local Green Spaces, identifies 18 locally significant views, sets terms for the Local Plan's roughly 300 homes at Pested Bars, records a survey need for at least 28 affordable homes, and takes comments until 23 October 2026
Graphic by Maidstone Live. Source: Loose Neighbourhood Plan 2025 to 2038, Pre-Submission (Regulation 14) version, and Loose Parish Council's consultation page.
Share this chartFacebookWhatsAppX

The 300 homes at Pested Bars

The one large housing site is not the parish council’s choice. Maidstone Borough Council’s Local Plan Review, adopted in March 2024, allocates land at Pested Bars, south of Maidstone, for approximately 300 homes under policy LPRSA270. The site straddles the boundary between Loose and Boughton Monchelsea parishes.

The draft plan accepts the allocation and sets conditions for the Loose section of it in policy LNP4:

  • the main vehicle access should come through the neighbouring allocation, LPRSA362, onto Sutton Road
  • any secondary access should be designed to stop rat-running and to protect the rural lanes around it
  • a 70-metre wildlife corridor should run along the western edge, between the houses and footpath KB26, as a buffer against Loose joining up with Mangravet
  • public green space and community growing areas should be provided

Policy LNP21 goes further on one point. It says the use of Boughton Lane for access to or from the Pested Bars development “would be strongly opposed”.

What local people said they need

A housing needs survey run between June and September 2025 by the Rural and Community Housing Enabling Service, for the borough and parish councils, drew 31 valid responses. It found a need for at least 28 affordable homes for people living in or connected to the parish, plus at least three open-market homes for older owners wanting to downsize.

Of those who said what they wanted, 24 asked for affordable rented homes, five for shared ownership and three for First Homes. The most common requests at the plan’s public events were for bungalows and smaller affordable homes for couples and young families.

Kent Homechoice data gathered at the same time showed 101 households with a registered connection to Loose on the borough council’s housing register.

Policy LNP2 asks new housing to respond to that survey, with one-bed homes built as level-access accommodation and affordable homes “tenure-blind” and mixed in with the rest.

Junctions the plan wants protected

Policy LNP21 names five places where development must not have a “severe impact”, including cumulatively:

  • Linton Crossroads
  • the Boughton Lane and Cripple Street junction
  • the Wheatsheaf junction
  • the Paynes Lane and Boughton Lane junction
  • the Old Loose Hill and Loose Road junction

Improvements at Linton Crossroads would be “strongly supported” to ease congestion and give safer crossings for pupils at Cornwallis Academy.

Why it is a new plan, not an update

The parish council’s Modifications Statement concludes that the changes are significant enough to change the nature of the plan, mainly because of the boundary change and the new policies that designate land. That matters for the process: it means the document goes through the full route of submission to the borough council, an independent examination and a local referendum before it can be “made”.

The borough council designated the new neighbourhood area in May 2025. Once a plan is made, the parish council’s share of the Community Infrastructure Levy paid by developers rises from 15 per cent to 25 per cent, according to the parish council’s plan page.

What it means for you

  • If you live in Loose, North Loose or on the Boughton Lane side of the A229: this is the document the borough council will weigh against planning applications on your street for the next 12 years. Our planning applications page explains how to find and comment on individual applications.
  • To read it: the plan and its appendices are on the parish council’s consultation page. Printed copies are at Loose Parish Pavilion during meetings and events, at the YMCA in Melrose Close (Monday to Friday 6.30am to 10pm, Saturday 8am to 6pm, Sunday 8am to 4pm) and at Coxheath Library in Heath Road (Monday, Thursday and Friday 9am to 5pm with a lunchtime closure, Tuesday 2pm to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 1pm).
  • To comment: the parish council prefers its online survey. You can also email office@loose-pc.gov.uk, or post to Neighbourhood Plan Consultation, Loose Parish Council, PO Box 634, Maidstone ME17 4YR. Paper forms are at the viewing locations.
  • Deadline: Friday 23 October 2026.
  • If you own one of the 51 green spaces: the designation restricts what can be built there. Appendix E of the plan maps each site.

Sources

All documents read on 25 September 2026.