King Charles embroiled in rural planning row over scheme to build 2,500 homes in ‘urban mess’
Plans proposed by King Charles to build 2,500 homes on farmland near an historic market town have been blasted by locals.
Residents in and near Faversham, Kent, say the schemes “will swallow up historic villages” and turn the town into “an urban mess”. The plans, which were first announced when the King, as the then Duke of Cornwall, managed the Duchy in 2018, seek to build 120 homes each year across a 20-year period.
An application for consent for an initial 261 homes was submitted to the local council in December last year, sparking outrage among locals who argue the town does not have the infrastructure support such a development. Some locals have claimed the proposals will negatively impact the local environment and contradict the monarch’s love for the natural world, while others say it will increase traffic and air pollution.
The houses are earmarked for a plot of land, which was acquired by the Duchy in 1999. The proposals have been put forward to address the housing crisis and will deliver an “ideal town” in line with a similar urban development in Poundbury, Dorset.
King Charles embroiled in rural planning row over scheme to build 2,500 homes in ‘urban mess’
