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Plan to knock down and replace past home of former Dover MP Charlie Elphicke, The Edge, Bay Hill, St Margaret's Bay

16:29, 03 January 2022

updated: 10:46, 30 January 2023

An ambulance is left stuck fast on a narrow road in a chaotic traffic snarl-up.

It is trapped for several minutes until it somehow manages to squeeze past the mess of cars.

Tangled mess. One man guides a car out of the chaos. Video still: Jenny Whitaker
Tangled mess. One man guides a car out of the chaos. Video still: Jenny Whitaker

The paramedic driver needed their colleague to get out to guide the vehicle through.

Another man was seen doing the same for one of the cars.

A resident who videoed the scene says this is a common sight at Bay Hill in St Margaret's Bay, which has two blind hairpin bends, and is barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other.

Yet, Jenny Whitaker fears, the situation will worsen with vehicle movements when the former family home of disgraced ex-MP Charlie Elphicke is knocked down and during the building of another large house in its place.

On the day she shot the film, on March 30, the ambulance was only on a training exercise, not an emergency call.

A paramedic guides his colleague out of snarl-up. Video still: Jenny Whitaker
A paramedic guides his colleague out of snarl-up. Video still: Jenny Whitaker

But she told Kent Online: "The work on the development would grind the hill to a halt. It will be much worse with so many vans and lorries coming and going. The road is not wide enough to cope.

"Even now every delivery causes a blockage. Bay Hill might just be the most challenging road in the county."

She stressed that there was a greater chance of emergency vehicles needing to use the road due to cliff falls, asylum seeker boat arrivals, swimmers in difficulty and tourists cut off by the tide.

The area has no paving for pedestrians and Mrs Whitaker also has an extraordinary photograph, in another incident, of a young man walking on a perimeter wall.

It was to get past a clog-up of traffic that lasted 10 minutes and was caused by a five-minute food delivery using a van.

A pedestrian has to walk on a wall on The Edge to get past stuck traffic. Picture:Jenny Whitaker
A pedestrian has to walk on a wall on The Edge to get past stuck traffic. Picture:Jenny Whitaker

Mrs Whitaker and her husband Tim live just 20 yards from the construction site, a distinctive white five-bedroomed house called The Edge.

This was where the Elphicke couple lived until Mr Elphicke was jailed in 2020 for sexual assault and he and his wife Natalie, the current Dover MP, separated.

Now Mrs Whitaker and her neighbours have sent in letters of objection to Dover District Council's planning department after it received an application to replace the house with another.

Other neighbours fear noise and disturbance during the work and say there is no need to demolish the existing 1920s, house, which they say is well built and historically interesting.

The applicants are a Mr and Mrs Rowson with Hume Planning Consultancy, of Sandwich, as their agents.

The Elphickes' former home at St Margaret's Bay. Picture: Sam Lennon KMG
The Elphickes' former home at St Margaret's Bay. Picture: Sam Lennon KMG
The Elphickes' former home at St Margaret's Bay. Picture: Sam Lennon KMG
The Elphickes' former home at St Margaret's Bay. Picture: Sam Lennon KMG

Hume, in a statement to the council, argues that the new property would be a new family home that would fit in with the character of the area and squarely replace the old one, so taking up no more land.

It said the new house, if built, would not increase residential activity or traffic movement.

Its statement concluded: "Overall the proposal represents a genuine opportunity to enhance the quality and functioning of an existing residential site, which in its current form is of little architectural merit."

Kemt County Council's highways department said it had no objections as long as arrangements were made such as works vehicles being parked away from the site, for example a nearby public car park.

Materials for the work would have to be transferred to smaller vehicles for them to negotiate the tricky hill.

Charlie and Natalie Elphicke, December 2019
Charlie and Natalie Elphicke, December 2019

The Edge was built in 1923 and first owned by a doctor called Robert Bakewell.

Charlie Elphicke, now 50, was the Conservative MP for Dover from 2010 to 2019.

He had been given a two-year sentence on September 15, 2020, at Southwark Crown Court after being convicted for three counts of sexual assault.

A court had heard that in one case he had chased a victim around his Westminster home while chanting "I'm a naughty Tory" in a singsong voice.

His wife Natalie became the area's MP in December 2019.

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