What is being built around Cliffe and Cliffe Woods

Detailed approval for the housing phase. Condition 1 as amended requires reserved matters approval for each phase or sub-phase, highway works excepted, before any development takes place. This is not a paperwork exercise: it is the decision by which the housing phase becomes capable of proceeding. A supplementary objection on the adequacy of the health evidence was filed on 9 September 2026: the Health Impact Assessment relied on four Highparks Medical Practice sites and the Higham branch has since closed and the group asks Medway to say whether the environmental information before it remains adequate. On 18 September 2026 the committee wrote again, on the affordable housing. The section 106 agreement of 2 June 2023 requires the affordable homes to be 60 per cent affordable rented housing and 40 per cent shared ownership. The planning statement filed with this application says 25 per cent of the homes will be affordable, split 60 per cent affordable rent and 40 per cent social rent. It puts the number of affordable homes at 63. The letter asks Medway four questions about which tenure mix it understands the agreement to require and which is now proposed. Medway’s document list labels it an objection; the letter says in terms that it is a request for clarification, not a representation.

• Layout, scale, appearance and landscaping of 250 homes
• Whether the affordable homes are the tenures the section 106 agreement secures

Consultation ended 8 September 2026 — still undecided

Detailed approval for the community hub phase, under the same condition 1 requirement as the housing. A supplementary objection on the adequacy of the health evidence was filed on 9 September 2026: the Health Impact Assessment relied on four Highparks Medical Practice sites and the Higham branch has since closed and the group asks Medway to say whether the environmental information before it remains adequate.

• What the promised community hub actually turns out to be

Consultation ended 8 September 2026 — still undecided

Detailed approval for the replacement sports ground and pavilion. It also fixes the layout to which conditions 40 and 41 attach — which makes it the application that decides what the village actually gets in place of the APCM recreation ground. A supplementary objection on the adequacy of the health evidence was filed on 9 September 2026: the Health Impact Assessment relied on four Highparks Medical Practice sites and the Higham branch has since closed and the group asks Medway to say whether the environmental information before it remains adequate.

• The replacement for the APCM Cliffe Recreation Ground
• Access to and suitability of the relocated sports ground

Consultation ended 8 September 2026 — still undecided

Received and validated on 28 August 2026. It asks Medway to approve the design and layout of the pitches, courts and pavilion under condition 41 of the appeal decision — which is to say, the thing the village is to receive in place of the APCM recreation ground. The applicant has filed two documents: an application form and a single site plan. By 11 September the parish council’s statutory response was on the file. Medway’s consultation period ran from 3 September to 24 September 2026, Medway’s register recorded twenty-two comments on it on 25 September 2026 and twenty-seven on 2 October 2026, all of them objections. Medway had not decided it as at 9 October 2026, when the count still stood at twenty-seven; its own target date is 23 October 2026. It runs alongside MC/26/1467, the reserved matters for the same phase, which Medway has not yet determined, so the detail of the replacement ground and the layout those details depend on are before the council at the same time. The group objected on 7 September 2026. Paragraph 25 of the appeal decision records the replacement as two football pitches, a cricket pitch, three tennis courts, three cricket nets and a new pavilion housing two changing rooms, going over and above the existing facilities. The applicant’s own planning statement, filed on MC/26/1467, offers one adult and one youth football pitch, two hard tennis courts and one cricket pitch, with no nets. The pavilion drawing exists, on MC/26/1467, but forms no part of this application.

• Three tennis courts and three cricket nets, or two courts and none
• A pavilion whose design is not in the application at all
• Pitch dimensions, run-offs and ball-stop, settled on one undimensioned drawing
• The mitigation the 2023 appeal decision relied on

Consultation ended 24 September 2026 — still undecided

Received and validated on 7 September 2026, alongside MC/26/1720 to MC/26/1724, with an internal target date of 2 November. It asks Medway to approve the travel plan required by condition 15 of the appeal decision, in full and for the whole development. Two documents are on the council’s file: the application form and a 26-page travel plan by the consultancy DHA, marked ‘Draft’ on its cover and watermarked DRAFT across its pages. Condition 15 asks for a final plan before each phase is occupied. This one names no phase, counts all 250 homes as one and says nothing about the community hub or the sports ground. It also drops commitments made in the 2022 Framework Travel Plan, among them a steering group with residents on it, personal travel advice for every household and independent monitoring. The group found this application on 11 September and filed its objection the same day. Medway’s consultation period closed on 2 October 2026. On 9 October 2026 its register recorded twelve comments, all of them objections. It had not decided the application, so a comment can still count; its own target date is 2 November 2026.

• How people will get to and from the new homes, the hub and the sports ground
• Whether a document marked ‘Draft’ is what Medway is being asked to approve
• Whether the promises in the 2022 Framework Travel Plan survive into the final one

Consultation ended 2 October 2026 — still undecided

Received 7 September 2026, validated 8 September. Condition 54, as amended, bars development in any phase or sub-phase, highway works excepted, until an Air Quality Emissions Mitigation Statement has been approved. The condition requires that Statement to be prepared in accordance with Medway’s own Air Quality Planning Guidance and that guidance says the latest Defra source sector damage costs should always be used. The Statement filed performs no calculation at all. It carries across a figure of £66,702 from the Environmental Statement of January 2022, since when Defra has updated its values twice. Against it the applicant sets £350,000 of mitigation, of which half is one electric vehicle charge point per dwelling — something Part S of the Building Regulations has required for new homes with parking since June 2022. The arithmetic does not work either: at the stated £750 a unit, £175,000 buys 233 units, not 250. The group filed its objection on 9 September 2026. Medway’s consultation period closed on 2 October 2026. On 9 October 2026 its register recorded eleven comments, all of them objections. It had not decided the application, so a comment can still count; its own target date is 3 November 2026.

• Whether the cost of the harm is calculated on current figures or on 2022 ones
• Whether the Building Regulations can be counted as mitigation
• Air quality on the lanes of a village ringed by internationally designated marshland

Consultation ended 2 October 2026 — still undecided

Received and validated on 7 September 2026, with an internal target date of 2 November. On 9 September its documents tab was empty: no application form, no covering letter, no drawing, while the companion applications validated the same day and the next all had documents. By 11 September an application form and four drawings had been published, each dated 7 September. The application form lists all four as Station Road drawings. Condition 10 requires the details of the ‘Cooling Road improvements’ shown on drawing ITB11092-GA-018 Rev A to be approved before any development takes place, but the appeal decision’s own list of approved plans titles that drawing ‘Proposed improvement scheme on Station Road’. The non-material amendment of May 2024 quietly changed the implementation trigger from ‘before any part of the development’ to ‘before that phase’. The group filed a holding objection on 9 September, when there was nothing to read. It reserved the right to say more once the documents appeared. It has not yet assessed the drawings. Medway’s consultation period closed on 2 October 2026. On 9 October 2026 its register recorded eleven comments, all of them objections. It had not decided the application, so a comment can still count; its own target date is 2 November 2026.

• Whether residents can see what has been submitted before it is decided
• Traffic through the village on Cooling Road
• Whether the details are the works the condition actually names

Consultation ended 2 October 2026 — still undecided

Received and validated on 8 September 2026. Condition 11 names four highway works: the sports pitch access at Buttway Lane, two site accesses on Church Street and one on Cooling Road. Details have been filed for one of them. The application form answers ‘No’ to the question whether only part of a condition is being discharged, so Medway is being asked to discharge the whole condition on a quarter of what it requires. Two of the four drawings state on their face that the junction is tracked for a refuse vehicle, a van and a large car and that coach access would need different radii — this being the only way into the ground that replaces the rec. The drawings offer the highway drainage for adoption by Kent County Council, which has had no highway function in Medway since 1998 and the word ‘Medway’ appears on none of them. The site clearance drawing proposes felling trees and moving a pole with no tree survey and no electricity apparatus plotted. The group filed its objection on 9 September 2026. Medway’s consultation period closed on 1 October 2026. On 9 October 2026 its register recorded sixteen comments, all of them objections. It had not decided the application, so a comment can still count; its own target date is 3 November 2026.

• Whether a coach or a minibus can reach the new sports ground
• Trees felled with no survey and a pole moved with no wayleave
• The first thing to be built on this site, fixed before anyone knows what the ground is

Consultation ended 1 October 2026 — still undecided

Received and validated on 7 September 2026. Medway’s register advertises this as details of highway works to ‘town roads’, but condition 12 is about Cooling Road improvements on the eastern parcel and all four drawings filed with it are titled ‘Cooling Road — Eastern Parcel’. Condition 12 names one drawing, ITB11092-GA-022. The four drawings submitted are 5997-003-6004, 6014, 6024 and 6034. The reference ITB11092 appears on none of them. The general arrangement drawing offers the highway drainage for adoption by Kent County Council, which has had no highway function in Medway since 1998 and the connection point is marked ‘to be confirmed’. One of the four is a site clearance drawing, filed with no tree survey and no arboricultural information of any kind. The group filed its objection on 9 September 2026. Medway’s consultation period closed on 1 October 2026. On 9 October 2026 its register recorded twelve comments, all of them objections. It had not decided the application, so a comment can still count; its own target date is 2 November 2026.

• An application advertised under a description that matches neither the condition nor the drawings
• Trees cleared on Cooling Road with nothing filed to assess
• Who maintains the highway drainage, on a drawing that names the wrong council

Consultation ended 1 October 2026 — still undecided

Received 7 September 2026, validated 8 September. Condition 26 requires an acoustic assessment in accordance with BS8233:2014 before each residential phase. A survey was carried out: three Class 1 meters, calibrated in the field, with a witnessed log and audio recording and the group says so plainly. The difficulty is the report. Its two tables date the survey to a period ending on 2 June 2056; the data plotted in its own appendix stop on 31 May 2026. The section describing the weather still reads ‘Temperatures ranged from X – Y °C’ and sends the reader to an appendix that holds no weather data. The only calibrator identified was laboratory-calibrated a month after the survey. No model was built for the maximum night-time levels the condition expressly limits. And the report recommends discharging conditions 27 and 28, which nobody has applied for, while elsewhere saying they should not yet be discharged — inviting Medway to accept a noise limit 10 dB above the one the Inspector imposed. The group filed its objection on 9 September 2026. Medway’s consultation period closed on 2 October 2026. On 9 October 2026 its register recorded eleven comments, all of them objections. It had not decided the application, so a comment can still count; its own target date is 3 November 2026.

• Whether new homes are protected from road noise and on what evidence
• A limit on the community hub that the report asks Medway to relax
• Whether a report that cannot be checked can discharge a condition on EIA development

Consultation ended 2 October 2026 — still undecided

Received and validated on 21 September 2026. Condition 13 requires the details of the highway works on the B2000, as shown on drawings ITB11092-GA-023 and ITB11092-GA-024, to be approved before any development takes place, with the works carried out before the 50th dwelling is occupied. What has been filed is an application form and two signage drawings by Robert West Consulting, dated 26 August 2026. Neither carries the ITB11092 reference the condition names. The two sheets are different drawings, covering different ground at different scales, yet both print the same number in the title block, 6051 at revision A01, under the register reference 5997-003. The application form gives them two different numbers, 5997-003-6051 for Town Road South and 5997-003-6052 for Town Road North. The file properties of the two published drawings bear out the form: the Town Road North sheet was plotted from a file named 6052, the Town Road South sheet from one named 6051. Both drawings are therefore on the file. What is wrong is that the North sheet prints 6051 on its face, so no sheet before the council prints the number 6052 at all. The form also lists a covering letter among the items submitted, which Medway had not published as at 9 October 2026. Both sheets name the project as Church Road, Cliffe; the site is Land to the east and west of Church Street. What each sheet shows is a location plan annotated with photographs of existing signs and road markings. Neither carries a sign schedule, a Traffic Signs Regulations diagram number or a single dimension for any sign proposed. Comment by 14 October 2026, when Medway’s consultation period ends. Medway’s own target date is 16 November 2026.

• Signage on the B2000, the main road through Cliffe and Cliffe Woods
• Two different drawings filed under one drawing number
• A pre-commencement condition on the permission for up to 250 dwellings
• Signs shown as photographs, with no schedule, diagram number or dimension

Comment by 14 October 2026

Outline permission for up to 225 dwellings. Refused by Medway in May 2017 under MC/16/3669. Gladman appealed. After a public inquiry the Inspector recommended the appeal be allowed — but the Secretary of State recovered the appeal, disagreed with his own Inspector and on 8 November 2018 dismissed it and refused permission (APP/A2280/W/17/3175461). These homes did not arrive by appeal: that objection succeeded. Gladman applied again under MC/19/0287 and it was Medway itself that granted outline permission, on 24 February 2021. Objections turned on school places, GP capacity, transport and the loss of agricultural land. The Inspector put the site at around 11 hectares, of which 2.6 hectares was best and most versatile and found that loss not significant enough to be determining. Detailed approval followed in February 2022 for 184 of the 225 homes (MC/21/1287) and a variation in October 2025 (MC/25/1559) brought that to 187. Now being built.

• Around 11 hectares of farmland, 2.6 of it best and most versatile
• School places and GP capacity across both villages

Sixty-eight dwellings including affordable housing, with parking, landscaping, open space, drainage and earthworks and a new access formed from View Road. Permission granted and being built out — conditions on biodiversity net gain and play equipment were discharged through 2025.

• Construction traffic routed through Town Road

The parish council’s tracker lists a Town Road scheme separately from Oakleigh Fields. The council’s own file shows they are the same thing: MC/21/1287 is the reserved matters approval under MC/19/0287, the 225-dwelling outline permission, at Land at Town Road. That approval, in February 2022, was for 184 homes. Later variations changed the landscaping (a pond replaced with a small orchard) and reconfigured the affordable homes without adding any. A third, MC/25/1559, approved on 28 October 2025, added three market homes, taking the number approved in detail to 187; its conditions on electric vehicle charging and ecology were discharged under MC/26/1086 on 29 July 2026. Listed here so the two names are not mistaken for two developments. The register counts the site once, under Oakleigh Fields, at the 187 homes approved in detail.

• Frontage onto the recreation ground

Details submitted to discharge condition 32. As amended, condition 32 bars development in any phase or sub-phase, highway works excepted, until a surface-water drainage scheme is approved. Medway approved it on 15 September 2026 under delegated powers, thirteen days before its own target date. It discharged the condition “for ALL PHASES”. The decision notice gives one reason: “the submitted information has been reviewed, and it is considered that the details are acceptable”. It refers to none of the twelve objections made on the application. No officer report, consultee response or habitats screening has been published with it. The Phase 2 investigation filed by the applicant had said shallow soakaways into the Seaford Chalk would not be a viable option for disposing of surface water. On 16 September 2026 the group’s committee wrote to the case officer asking Medway to publish its record of the decision, to answer twelve questions in writing and to say by 30 September 2026 whether it will look at the decision again.

• Where the surface water from the site actually goes
• A possible pathway to the Thames Estuary and Marshes Ramsar site
• Whether one approval can stand for every phase of the development

Consultation ended 4 September 2026 — still undecided

Details submitted to discharge conditions 20 to 23, the site investigation and remediation conditions, which bar development until they are met. Medway’s register describes it as conditions 22 and 23; the application form, the applicant’s covering letter and the decision notice all give conditions 20 to 23. Medway discharged all four on 8 October 2026 under delegated powers, on its own target date, “for the whole site (All 3 plots)”. The notice accepts the conclusion of the Phase 2 Geo-Environmental Investigation, prepared in August 2025 for Trenport Investments Limited and Rosechurch Homes Limited, that no remediation work is necessary on any of the three plots. It records objections and representations from sixteen households or representatives and says they concern wider matters and do not directly relate to the contamination conditions. Where residents referred to the investigation, it says “the specialist consultation response received is sufficient”. No consultee response has been published: on 9 October 2026 the file held four documents, the application form, the covering letter, the investigation and the decision notice. The investigation records a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone on the site itself.

• Whether the remediation strategy answers what conditions 20 to 23 require
• A Nitrate Vulnerable Zone recorded on the site itself

Consultation ended 16 September 2026 — still undecided

Outline permission for up to 250 homes, a mixed-use community hub and a replacement sports ground and pavilion, with accesses from Church Street, Cooling Road and Buttway Lane. Medway’s Planning Committee refused it on 19 October 2022, against the officer recommendation. The public inquiry sat from 16 to 24 May 2023. During it, after the cross-examination of the council’s witness, Medway confirmed in an amended statement of case dated 22 May 2023 that it no longer wished to maintain its reasons for refusal; press reports said the developer’s legal team had indicated it would seek costs of around £100,000. The parish council and the residents’ group both appeared, the group through four of its members, against the appellant’s King’s Counsel and four witnesses. The Inspector allowed the appeal on 28 November 2023 with 54 conditions. Non-material amendment MC/24/0750, dated 3 May 2024, amended conditions 1, 7, 9, 10, 21, 22, 26, 32, 34 and 54. It amended no others. A section 106 agreement dated 2 June 2023 sits alongside it. The principle of development is settled and closed — which is exactly why the fight is now about the applications above.

• The APCM Cliffe Recreation Ground
• Arable land on both sides of the village
• Church Street, Cooling Road and Buttway Lane as the only ways in and out

Twenty-five dwellings with landscaping, parking, earthworks and a new vehicular access from View Road, on the same land as the 68. Permission granted: conditions on ancient woodland buffer, habitat creation, ecological mitigation and landscaping were all discharged during 2025. The same address, land south of View Road, also carries the full permission for fifty retirement homes granted under MC/22/1713 on 10 May 2023. Medway’s file gives that permission an expiry date of 10 May 2026; whether it was implemented before then and if so whether the two overlap, is not settled (see that entry).

• An ancient woodland buffer on the site
• A second Esquire scheme on the same field

The full history, from Medway’s file. Outline permission for 50 retirement homes was refused on 10 November 2017 under MC/16/3742, then allowed on appeal under APP/A2280/W/18/3202264. Reserved matters MC/19/2836 was refused on 17 September 2020 — the scheme councillors threw out as out of character, the round compared in coverage to army barracks. Conditions 8 and 12 were discharged in March 2021 and a second reserved matters application, MC/21/0323, was refused on 28 June 2021. Then, on 10 May 2023, Medway granted full permission under MC/22/1713 for 50 retirement homes as 42 apartments and 8 bungalows, with communal facilities, parking, landscaping and on-site allotments. Checked on 14 September 2026, Medway’s file gives it a permission expiry date of 10 May 2026. No document has been filed on it since 2023 and nothing on the file shows that work started or that its conditions were discharged. Whether the permission was implemented before that date is not shown. The open question on the register is whether it was and if so whether it overlaps the 25 dwellings permitted under MC/24/0279. Until that is settled no homes are counted here, rather than risk counting the same field twice.

• Full permission for 50 homes, granted 10 May 2023, with an expiry date of 10 May 2026 on Medway’s file
• Whether it was implemented before 10 May 2026 and if so whether it overlaps the 25 dwellings under MC/24/0279
• A precedent for scale and design on the edge of the village

Forty-four dwellings, a quarter of them affordable, with access, public open space and landscaping. Permission granted on 23 June 2025. Applications to discharge condition 15 (construction environmental management, MC/26/0061) and condition 16 (air quality, MC/26/0078) were both made in January 2026. Medway discharged condition 15 on 22 September 2026. The notice gives one reason: that the submitted information has been reviewed and the details are considered acceptable. Condition 16 was still undecided on Medway’s file on 9 October 2026, more than six months past the council’s own target date of 17 March 2026. The parish council’s tracker lists this as 45 — the council’s own file says 44.

• Another 44 homes on the Buckland Road side of the village

The village recreation ground, now inside the development site and owned by Trenport Investments — which the group’s own title research dates to 2001. Residents had it listed as an Asset of Community Value in 2022. Medway received the owner’s notice of intended disposal on 18 December 2024 and the community had until 30 January 2025 to ask to be treated as a bidder; the group registered its intention to bid within that window. The owner had also asked Medway to treat the sale as a part-listed disposal, which would be exempt. On 3 March 2025 Medway’s Director of Place confirmed that it was an exempt disposal under section 95(5)(e) of the Localism Act 2011, so the moratorium did not apply and the owner was able to proceed with the disposal. Medway’s notice records that the remainder of the site stays on its list of Assets of Community Value. Separately the group is assembling the evidence on Medway’s historic and current property interest — a deed dated 17 January 1975 and a licence dated 6 February 1975 and whether a statutory trust or public open space status arises — along with a historical document said to show the field was left to the village in 1972. Public use is already well evidenced; the legal character of the council’s interest is not.

• A recreation ground used by several sports clubs
• Whether a statutory trust over public open space survives
• Medway ruled the 2025 disposal exempt, so the moratorium did not apply

The marshes north and west of the village are the Thames Estuary and Marshes Ramsar site and Special Protection Area, with the South Thames Estuary and Marshes SSSI alongside. The appeal decision of 28 November 2023 records the Church Street site as within 6km of the Thames Estuary and Marshes Special Protection Area and Ramsar site (paragraph 53). The applicant’s own Drainage Technical Note puts Cliffe Marshes approximately 450 metres north of the site and the 2021 ground conditions assessment records the designated area as immediately to the west and about 500 metres north. The group has asked Medway to state the distance from Natural England’s published designated-sites data. The Phase 2 investigation also records a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone on the site itself and gives the North Kent Medway Chalk groundwater a Water Framework Directive status of Poor.

• Internationally protected wetland and the birds that use it
• The RSPB Cliffe Pools reserve on the village’s doorstep
• Groundwater already classified as Poor

Outline application for up to 100 dwellings on a 5.18 hectare site south of Higham Road and east of Buckland Road, immediately beside the Eternal Lake Nature Reserve, with access from Higham Road. Received 5 February 2026. The officer report recorded 139 letters of objection, together with objections from Cliffe and Cliffe Woods Parish Council, residents, councillors and other organisations — including the RSPB, which objected over recreational and urbanisation impacts on the surrounding designated sites. Natural England did not take a position: it told Medway it was not able to give specific advice on the application and referred the council to its standing advice. Kent Wildlife Trust did not comment. REFUSED by Medway’s Planning Committee on 26 August 2026, in line with the officer recommendation as amended. The published officer report recommended refusal for five reasons; a sixth, on the Special Protection Areas, was added by the Supplementary Agenda Advice Sheet on the day, which also rewrote the other five to match the National Planning Policy Framework published on 17 August 2026. Officers accepted that Medway cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply — the developer’s central argument — and that the tilted balance applies and recommended refusal regardless. Medway issued the decision notice on 7 September 2026, giving the six reasons as amended on the day. The six-month period for an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate runs from that date.

• Land right beside the Eternal Lake Nature Reserve
• Best and most versatile agricultural land
• A new access onto Higham Road

A full application for three detached two-storey, three-bedroom houses on about 2,556 square metres of the garden of Westfield, a bungalow on the western side of Town Road between Cliffe Woods and Cliffe, with a new access onto Town Road. Received and validated on 4 March 2026. The site lies outside any settlement boundary, in the countryside. The parish council objected, on highway safety near a bend and the brow of a hill and because the site lies in the gap between the two villages that the Neighbourhood Plan protects. Dickens Country Protection Society also objected. Medway refused it on 24 September 2026, by a decision of its officers, for five reasons. The first is that it would bring more housing into the rural gap between Cliffe and Cliffe Woods and undermine the separation between them, contrary to the Medway Local Plan, policy SUSDEV1 of the Neighbourhood Plan and the National Planning Policy Framework 2026. The second also cites Neighbourhood Plan policies H6, SUSDEV1 and SUSDEV4. Medway’s internal target date had been 29 April 2026.

• The gap between Cliffe and Cliffe Woods
• A new access onto Town Road, the B2000