Swale's 17,024 Homes: Maidstone Calls the Plan Unsound

Maidstone Borough Council is about to tell its northern neighbour that its plan for 17,024 new homes cannot be signed off, because nobody has yet worked out what the traffic does to M20 Junction 7.

Cabinet meets on Tuesday 8 September to approve the council’s formal objection to the Swale Borough Local Plan Review. The recommendation is that the response be submitted before Swale’s consultation closes on 21 September 2026.

Maidstone residents can respond to Swale directly, by the same deadline.

What Swale is proposing

Swale’s Local Plan Review runs to 2042 and would replace its existing plan, Bearing Fruits 2031. Maidstone’s report to Cabinet summarises what it contains:

• 17,024 new homes, an average of 1,064 a year
• 114 Gypsy and Traveller pitches
• 73 hectares of employment land
• 12 strategic policies, 48 site allocation policies and 48 development management policies

This is the Regulation 19 stage, the last formal consultation before a plan goes to the government for examination. At this point comments are not invited on planning issues in general, only on whether the plan is legally compliant and sound.

The transport objection

Maidstone’s planners say most of it is fine. The vision, spatial strategy, allocations and development management policies are “broadly supported”, and both the Sustainability Appraisal and the Habitats Regulations Assessment are judged sound.

Transport is where the response turns. In the council’s representation, officers record that Swale’s own 2026 transport model has only reached forecast stage:

The transport modelling has only reached forecast stage and no mitigation has yet been developed. As such the Council believes that the work is incomplete and not consistent with national policy in line with the test of soundness.

The consequence for Maidstone is set out in the next sentence of the same entry. The forecasting, the council says, “does indicate that M20 Jct 7 and M2 Jct 4 have issues”. Maidstone needs to see the mitigations before it can judge the effect on its own Local Plan Review and infrastructure programme.

M20 Junction 7 is Maidstone’s own junction, at the northern edge of the town. M2 Junction 4 is near Sittingbourne, about 10 miles north of Maidstone town centre.

Officers make three further criticisms:

• The Infrastructure Delivery Plan looks incomplete. There is no acknowledgement of the need for highways mitigation schemes, which the report calls “an odd omission considering the level of growth proposed”. The Kent Cycling and Walking Improvement Plan’s active travel route 14, Maidstone to Sittingbourne, is missing from it entirely.
• Policy ST9 has no infrastructure list. Contribution levels and a list of what developer money would buy have not been set out, unlike Maidstone’s equivalent policy LPRSP13.
• The cross-boundary issues are incomplete. Swale’s Duty to Cooperate statement does not name the A249 corridor or the Kent Downs National Landscape, and Maidstone wants both added, along with a commitment to landscape and biodiversity connectivity across the boundary.

Maidstone also notes that the Duty to Cooperate was legally revoked on 25 March 2026, so Swale’s statement needs updating, although effective joint working remains one of the tests of soundness.

One further correction is minor but telling. Swale’s Habitats Regulations Assessment refers to the Maidstone Local Plan 2011-2031 rather than the Local Plan Review 2021-2038. The reference concerns the Lidsing Garden Community, which only appears in the newer plan.

What happens next

Swale’s adopted Local Development Scheme, quoted in the Maidstone report, sets out the timetable. All of it depends on the Planning Inspectorate having capacity.

What it means for you

If you drive through M20 Junction 7, or you use the A249 between Maidstone and Sittingbourne, this consultation is the point at which the traffic case gets tested. Once the plan is submitted, the argument moves to an examination in public and the terms are largely set.

Comments go to Swale Borough Council, not Maidstone:

• Deadline: 5pm, Monday 21 September 2026
• By email: Lpcomments@swale.gov.uk
• By post: Planning Policy Manager, Swale Borough Council, Swale House, East Street, Sittingbourne, ME10 3HT
• Online: the Swale consultation portal at swale-consult.objective.co.uk

Representations are passed to the Planning Inspector, so they carry most weight when they say which of the four soundness tests the plan fails and what change would fix it.

Maidstone’s Cabinet meets at 6.30pm on Tuesday 8 September at the Town Hall, High Street. To speak on the item, the council asks for contact by 4pm one clear working day beforehand on 01622 602899 or committee@maidstone.gov.uk.

Local roadworks and travel updates are on our Maidstone roadworks and travel page.