Swale in a muddle over Greenfield development

Swale planners comments in sharp contrast to those of the Swale Forward chief executive.

Steve Bessant, head of development services at Swale Borough Council recently stated that the council is "very much signed up to the brownfield site agenda and we would not have suggested Stones Farm as a development site unless all brownfield sites had been exhausted."

This is in direct contrast to that of Greg MacDonald, chief executive of regeneration agency Swale Forward.

Previously in August of this year Greg MacDonald publicly stated that housing building is “very different in his area. It is more spread out, which means that some of the green-field sites will be built out before the more difficult brownfield sites, a number of which are being assembled.”

Its no wonder that the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) identifies Swale as the worst borough in the whole of the Thames Gateway for building on greenfield sites, with a only a meagre 52% of development on previously developed (‘brownfield’) sites.