9 October 2026
The Teynham & Highsted Community Action Group has again been invited to respond to the latest round of correspondence before the Secretary of State decides whether the proposed 8,400-home Highsted Park development should go ahead.
We submitted our response on 9 October, challenging the developers’ latest arguments.
Our main points are:
- Infrastructure must be more than a promise. Putting roads, schools and community facilities into a planning proposal is not enough. There must be clear evidence that they will be funded and delivered when residents need them.
- The Highsted Park scheme is not included in Swale’s draft Local Plan. The developers argue that the Plan should carry no weight because they believe it is flawed. We disagree: public consultation has concluded, and the Council intends to submit it for independent examination in December. The developers’ objections do not justify brushing it aside.
- The sites at Bobbing and South East Faversham have already been approved by Swale’s Planning Committee and await their formal decision notices. This matters because they form part of the Council’s planned approach to providing new homes. The Secretary of State must assess whether adding Highsted Park would conflict with that approach — including how much development takes place, where it goes and when it is built. The fact that the sites do not overlap does not answer those questions.
- New evidence about historic chemical waste disposal at the former Shell site, now Kent Science Park, needs clear answers. Historical records describe toxic waste pits, chemicals associated with insecticides, and concerns about contamination of water supplies. We have asked for the potential risks to human health and groundwater to be properly investigated, and for any necessary clean-up to be shown to be safe and effective before a decision is made.
Our response addresses the latest submissions and builds on the detailed case we presented at the public inquiry.
We continue to urge the Secretary of State to refuse both Highsted Park applications.
The Teynham & Highsted Community Action Group is a consortium of five parish councils: Doddington, Lynsted with Kingsdown, Newnham, Teynham, and Tonge.