Tuesday 10 June: The entire day was spent with Bruce Bamber, the highways consultant for the Teynham & Highsted Community Action Group, under detailed cross-examination by the applicant’s barrister.
Key Points from the day
- 🔎 The barrister questioned why Mr Bamber and the Duchy of Cornwall’s consultant are the only highways professionals opposing the transport plans.
- 🗣️ Mr Bamber said he was surprised by this and suggested there may be evidence that KCC and National Highways have seen that he has not.
- 📉 He also challenged National Highways for accepting flawed assumptions without proper scrutiny, warning that the applicant’s modelling is being treated as credible when it fails to withstand basic testing.
- 🚶♂️ He made clear that sustainable transport was not built into the scheme from the start — in breach of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which requires early integration of sustainable travel into site design.
- 🚌 The site is laid out in separated parcels, disconnected from Sittingbourne, making integrated public transport almost impossible.
- 🚲 The applicant claimed there was easy cycle access to Teynham rail station — but Mr Bamber explained that rat-running along Lower Road makes it unsafe for cyclists, particularly with further development in the area.
- 🛑 He emphasised that the site layout does not support sustainable travel, regardless of what is claimed in policy statements. “Saying it’s a vision doesn’t make it a reality,” he argued — a vision must still be evidenced.
On the transport modelling:
- ⚠️ The applicant’s assumptions about people switching from cars to walking, cycling or buses are wildly over-optimistic.
- 📉 Even under generous estimates, non-car travel might reach 22% — but it could be as low as 7%. The “gold standard” of 50% is far out of reach given the site’s design and location.
- 🛣️ London Road in Teynham is already heavily congested, and additional development — especially with the Northern Relief Road — would make conditions worse.
- 🚗 Mr Bamber repeated that building new roads creates induced traffic: more road capacity leads to more driving, not less. As he put it, “You can’t plan for a sustainable future by ignoring how people actually behave.”
In Summary
- 📌 Today’s cross-examination highlighted deep flaws in the Highsted Park transport plans. Far from enabling sustainable travel, the proposals would entrench car dependency, exacerbate congestion, and undermine road safety — particularly in places like Teynham.