Cllr David Wimble’s New Romney Housing U-Turn Exposes Local Plan Hypocrisy

Cllr David Wimble (pictured) now says he’ll fight proposals for up to 110 homes on farmland north of Cockreed Lane, New Romney. Fair enough. Residents are entitled to ask hard questions about farmland, water, roads, doctors, schools and whether Romney Marsh is being asked to take too much. But there’s a small problem with the outrage machine: the planning framework that helps explain why New Romney keeps attracting development pressure is one Cllr Wimble publicly commended, helped carry through council, and politically owned as Cabinet Member for the District Economy.

The Folkestone & Hythe Places and Policies Local Plan was adopted on 16 September 2020. The council’s own adopted-plan page says the plan identifies small and medium-sized sites across the district to meet Core Strategy targets and sets detailed policies for assessing planning applications. The council meeting record says the adoption item was moved by then council leader David Monk, seconded by Cllr Wimble, and resolved. That isn’t a footnote. That’s a signature on the planning weather system New Romney is now living under.

The plan itself carries Cllr Wimble’s foreword. In it, he says the document sets out the council’s “vision for future development” and identifies more than 50 sites where the district’s future housing, employment, community and leisure needs could be met. He thanks residents and organisations who commented, notes the issues were examined by an independent planning inspector, and says: “I have great pleasure in commending this Places and Policies Local Plan to you.” That was Cllr David Wimble, Cabinet Member for the District Economy, September 2020.

To be absolutely clear, the current Cockreed Lane proposal is not an allocated site in that plan. Catesby Estates says the land north of Cockreed Lane is immediately adjacent to New Romney’s settlement boundary but is not currently allocated for development. It says the council can demonstrate only 3.1 years of housing supply against a requirement of 885 homes a year, and that its proposal would deliver up to 110 homes, including 22% affordable housing. That is the promoter’s case, not ours. But it is precisely the sort of argument that becomes stronger when a council cannot show a five-year housing land supply.

The awkward part for Cllr Wimble is that the adopted plan did not treat New Romney as a museum piece to be sealed in glass. It identifies New Romney, incorporating Littlestone-on-Sea, as a Strategic Town whose role is to “accommodate significant development” where consistent with maintaining historic character and supporting its wider hinterland, transport hub, town centre, tourism, employment and public services. In plain English: the local plan didn’t say “no more New Romney”. It said New Romney had a strategic growth role.

The New Romney section goes further. It quotes Core Strategy Policy SS1 saying the “strategic growth of New Romney is also supported” so the market town can “sustainably provide for the bulk of the housing, community infrastructure and commercial needs of the Romney Marsh Area.” It also says Policy CSD8 establishes New Romney as a key market town in Romney Marsh. That doesn’t automatically make every field fair game. But it does make today’s “how could this happen?” routine look rather selective.

There’s another important detail. The plan’s RM4 text, dealing with land west of Ashford Road, says the Core Strategy had already highlighted New Romney’s strategic expansion between Rolfe Lane and Cockreed Lane. It then states that an additional area was allocated to “round off” that part of the settlement and adds: “It is not envisaged that there will be a further requirement to extend beyond this site in this plan period.” That line is useful to residents opposing more growth beyond allocated sites. But it also proves the council had long known Cockreed Lane and its wider area sat inside the New Romney growth debate.

So the fair criticism is this: Cllr Wimble can oppose the current proposal. He can object as ward councillor. He can raise water stress, farmland, infrastructure and cumulative pressure on Romney Marsh. He should. But he cannot credibly present himself as a bystander who has just discovered that New Romney is under development pressure. He was in the political cockpit when the 2020 plan was adopted, he seconded its adoption, and his own foreword commended the plan to the public.

Nor is he currently a member of Folkestone & Hythe’s Planning and Licensing Committee. His Planning and Licensing Committee appointment ran from 23 May 2019 to 24 May 2023. That means he can campaign, speak as ward member where allowed, and make representations. He does not presently sit as one of the councillors deciding planning applications at committee.

This is the real story. Not that a councillor opposes a housing proposal. Councillors are allowed to change their minds, respond to public concern and object to unallocated development. The issue is memory. In 2020, the plan was sold as orderly growth, certainty and a way to manage development. In 2026, when the growth pressure reaches a politically inconvenient field near New Romney, the same councillor now reaches for the protest banner. That isn’t illegal. It may even be popular. But residents are entitled to call it what it looks like: planning-policy amnesia with a campaign leaflet attached.

The Shepway Vox Team’s view is simple. If Cllr Wimble wants to fight the Cockreed Lane scheme, he should do so honestly: by explaining what has changed since 2020, why the local plan’s New Romney growth assumptions are no longer adequate, how water and infrastructure evidence should now be tested, and whether the district’s housing land supply failure is opening the door to speculative proposals. What he shouldn’t do is behave as if the plan he helped usher in has nothing to do with the pressure now landing on Romney Marsh.

Seen something the public should know about? Send tips, documents or concerns to TheShepwayVoxTeam(at)proton(dot)me. You can contact us in confidence, speak off the record in the first instance, and help us follow the evidence where it leads.

The Shepway Vox Team

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