KSP expansion plans in tatters

Reading the recent article in the East Kent Gazette might have led you to believe that the Kent Science Park has been successful in gaining some ground on their grand expansion plans. This could not be further from the truth and in fact this comes across as a somewhat desperate attempt to instil some much needed faith in their proposals.

The suggestion that the Science Park has somehow overcome the stumbling block imposed by the lack of support from the Highways Agency is particularly amusing, given that the Highways Agency has just objected to their latest local plan submission.

In fact such is the serious nature of this rebuttal that the Science Park has asked for the inquiry hearing to be postponed just 6 days before it was due to take place. This we understand is so that their consultants can appeal to the Highways Agency to withdraw their objection.

It is worth noting that these larger scale plans that they “make no secret of “ are not part and parcel of their local plan submission. We are in fact limited in our discussions on the major expansion proposals, even though Swale’s Economic Strategy is not. We can’t talk about the A2/M2 link even though Swale’s Transport Strategy does and we certainly can’t discuss the 5,000 houses, as that would be far too politically sensitive.