Affordable Homes Lost After Council Fails to Enforce Legal Planning Condition
This is a story of lost affordable housing.
At the Full Council meeting on 23 July 2025, Cllr Jim Martin responded to a question from Cllr Nicola Keen about affordable housing provision at a key development site. His claim: that “nothing was lost” — no homes, no money, and no enforceable obligation.
But a review of the public planning record reveals this claim does not stand up to scrutiny.
The 2016 Application: £1.7 Million That Never Arrived (Application Y15/1154/SH)
A 2016 planning application proposed 36 flats and included a £1.7 million commuted sum towards off-site affordable housing. The planning officer explicitly stated this sum would be secured through a Section 106 agreement.
Permission was granted in principle — but only if the S106 was signed. In the end, the application was never implemented, and the contribution was never secured.
Cllr Martin was right about that part. But the real issue lies in the earlier permission.
The 2011 Permission: What It Required — and What Didn’t Happen
The site’s development began under a renewed 2011 planning permission. This permission carried Condition 13, inherited from a 2008 planning appeal APP-L2250-A-08-2063316, which stated:
“No development shall take place until a scheme for the provision of affordable housing… has been submitted to and approved in writing.”
That scheme had to include:
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Number and timing of affordable units;
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Affordability mechanisms;
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Criteria for occupancy.
This was a clear pre-commencement condition — meaning work could not lawfully start until the affordable housing scheme was approved.
However, no such scheme was ever submitted, according to publicly available material.
Cllr Martin claimed this condition “did not require delivery” — suggesting it was unenforceable. That is false. In planning law, failing to meet a pre-start condition means the development was unlawful.
The Council should have stopped it. It didn’t,according to the publicly available documents.
Timeline & Verdict on Key Claims
The Real Issue: Council Failure, Not Legal Ambiguity
Cllr Martin’s suggestion that this was all a quirk of legal drafting is misleading. The record shows that:
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The 2011 permission was conditional on affordable housing.
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That condition was breached, and no action was taken.
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The £1.7 million was only offered under a later, unused permission.
The real failure here is not legal but procedural — the Council simply did not enforce its own conditions according to the publicly available information. That failure resulted in no affordable homes being delivered and no financial compensation secured.
Bottom Line
This wasn’t an accident of planning law.
It was a failure of planning enforcement.
Cllr Martin’s attempt to shift blame ignores the clear and well-documented public history. Twelve affordable homes were required. None were delivered. The promised £1.7 million was never triggered. The loss — both in housing and public value — is real.
The Shepway Vox Team
Discernibly Different Dissent
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