We often hear from those opposed to new estates being built across Kent – but what about those who desperately want a home to call their own?

Here, in our latest Spotlight on Housing feature, Local Democracy Reporter Dan Esson speaks to young people looking to get on the ladder and outlines why big changes could be on the way...

Our county is known as the “Garden of England” for its rolling hills, sparsely populated countryside and impressive vistas. However, with the rate of housebuilding, some have taken to calling it the “patio of England” instead.

Planning applications for developments of any size more often than not face a raft of objections. But with house prices skyrocketing since the pandemic, there are some who think the solution is more building, not less.

The Kent couple who can’t afford a house

In October, mum-of-one Chani Sanger became a rare voice at a council planning meeting - speaking in favour of a 44-home development in Lyminge, near Folkestone.

Venting her frustration at opposition to almost all applications to build new homes, she said “places in the Elham Valley should not be only accessible to the super-rich”.

Unable to afford to get on the property ladder, the 30-year-old finance officer splits her time between her parent’s home in Lyminge and the family home of her husband – a mechanic – in nearby Bladbean.

She recently spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) about the difficulty the couple have faced in buying a place of their own.

Mrs Sanger says that in 2022 they had saved more than £15,000 for a deposit and were making offers on properties - but kept being gazumped by buyers with more money.

“What was happening was people were just coming in and swooping on them,” she said.

“It’s really disheartening. So when people are talking about ‘we can’t build anything new’, then how are we meant to afford anything?

“You find somewhere amazing and you get your hopes up, and you go and view it, then you go through all this stuff and waiting to hear back - and then somebody else with a lot more money just comes and swoops in.”

Readers despair as prices rocket

According to Rightmove, the average sold price for houses in Kent last year was £429,029, with even flats going for £259,729.

It marks a dramatic increase over the past decade. Data from the UK Housing Review shows that average house prices in the South East, excluding London, rose from £6,000 in 1970 to £29,000 in 1980, £80,000 in 1990, £137,000 in 2000 and £287,000 in 2010.

It means owning a property is becoming increasingly out of reach for young people in Kent.

Mrs Sanger said: “The only choice you’re really given if you want to save up is move back with your parents.

“You have to do something, or what, we’re just meant to rent our entire lives and p*** our money down the drain? You just can’t seem to win.”

Her feelings of despair are echoed by KentOnline readers.

Writing on our Facebook page, Dean Ludlow said: “Something that used to be a normal thing, now people just dream of owning a home. I’ll probably never even be able to get on the ladder, working two jobs.”

Ben Wood, 42, said he bought his first home last year, adding: “I’ll be paying the mortgage until I die. Good luck to this generation.”

Kaz Patricia Burdett said: “I’m at the age where I should be moving out but can I do it on my own? Haha [with] today’s prices, heck no. At this rate I’m going to buy a static caravan.”

Gillian Burton wrote: “Both my sons are in their late 30s. Neither have their own house.”

Reacting to rising house prices, Ryan Konkolewski said: “And some still act like Netflix and coffee is why we can’t afford to buy.”

Meanwhile, according to Stacey Hill, “the younger generation don’t stand a chance.”

Mrs Sanger says that while social housing should be a priority, more properties of all sorts need to be built.

The theory is that by having greater supply to meet the demand, prices will stop rising so sharply.

The government has set a target of almost 12,000 new homes to be built in Kent every single year.

‘London’s housing crisis is being pushed into Kent’

Young people are ramping up the pressure on the government to prioritise housebuilding.

We spoke to 23-year-old Freddie Poser, the new director of PricedOut - a London-based organisation billing itself as the “Campaign for Affordable House Prices”.

PricedOut argues that the UK is millions of homes short of where it should be. Part of its manifesto reads: “If Britain had built at the same rate as the average western European country from 1955-2015, we would have an extra 4.3 million houses.”

Mr Poser says lots more houses need to be built in places like Kent and the Home Counties - partly due to increasing demand from Londoners.

“The long and short of the housing crisis is Britain has not built enough homes for decades,” he said.

“We need the houses built in the places where house prices are highest because that’s a signal telling us that there’s too little housing in that area.

“One of the reasons it’s particularly bad in places like Kent and the south east is because growth in London has been relatively strong in the UK, which has unfortunately not been the case around the whole country.

“But London especially has not built nearly enough homes, so that pushes out the housing crisis into the Home Counties and into the south east and across the south of England – you see a lot of it being driven by demand in London driving up house prices across the country.

“Things like the metropolitan green belt and other policies have made it very difficult to deliver homes for London, which means people still need to get to London for their jobs but the only way they can do it is by looking further afield or bidding further up the prices.”

Why homes could be built on Kent’s green belt

The Sevenoaks district in Kent shares a large border with the London Borough of Bromley - and is 93% metropolitan green belt.

Intended to limit the sprawl of the capital and other cities, the metropolitan green belt has stricter rules which make it more difficult for developers to get permission to build.

However, Sevenoaks needs to build 712 homes a year - a total of 10,680 from 2025 to 2040 - amid an “acute” need for more properties in the leafy area.

Huge swathes of Kent are also covered by two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) - the Kent Downs and High Weald - where it is also harder to get planning permission.

Mr Poser said: “It will probably be the case that to solve the housing crisis some of the green belt will need to be built on.

“It’s important to do that in a sensitive way and case-by-case, but in a national sense not much of England is built on.”

Sevenoaks district councillor Nick Varley (Lib Dem) admits big changes could be on the way.

The Lib Dem said: “I think that’s the consensus that is emerging through the national debate – that green belt legislation has been in place for many decades and the housing need that is now out there means that these things need looking at again.”

Combatting ‘Nimby-ism’

With planning permission mainly the domain of district and borough councils, local politics is a crucial factor in the housing crisis.

Mr Poser said: “People generally do not like homes being built near them.

“This is combined with our planning system, which is almost perfectly designed to incentivise people to block new homes.

“It doesn’t allow residents to get any benefits from new homes, but it gives them a chance to veto it.”

In the world of planning and housing, the originally-American epithet Nimby - ‘not in my backyard’ - is on the tip of every tongue.

David Monk, former Tory leader of Folkestone & Hythe District Council, told the LDRS he “hates Nimbys” and describes them as “evil” and “selfish”.

“Nimbyism is one of the most pernicious phenomena we have in the planning system,” the veteran local politician argued.

“It is absolutely pernicious - they’ve been at it for 40 years now.

“All the previous attempts to reform the planning system have been scuppered, sorry to say mainly by Conservative shire MPs who fear backlash from their electorate.”

On the seeming success of Nimbyism, he said: “First and foremost is that they know that politicians don’t like to say ‘no’ because they’re scared - they’re scared of losing votes.”

Cllr Monk describes anti-housing activists as a “loud, voracious mob” who are “uncouth in the way they treat people who don’t agree with them”.

As council leader, he drew the ire of anti-housing activists regularly. He consistently supported the controversial Prince’s Parade development - a plan for 150 homes and a new leisure centre - on Hythe seafront.

Cllr Monk, who still chairs Swingfield Parish Council, also backed Otterpool Park - one of the biggest planning applications in the country. The 10,000-home “garden town” is set to be built on the former Folkestone Racecourse between Sellindge, Westenhanger and Hythe. Planning permission for the first 8,500 homes of the new town was granted in April 2023.

Cllr Monk lost his seat at the May 2023 election, and the Tory administration was replaced by a Green and Lib-Dem minority coalition. The new leadership announced the scuppering of Prince’s Parade shortly after being elected.

‘Locals aren’t getting these new houses’

Campaigns against individual housing developments often bring local activists together and eventually expand to other issues and opposition to other developments.

Farm Fields & Fresh Air Faversham was set up initially to oppose the Duchy of Cornwall’s plans for a 2,500-home “garden city” on agricultural land outside the market town.

Since then members have campaigned against several other developments - such as the 180-home Abbey Fields estate, which was snubbed by the council in June.

One of the group’s founders, Carol Goatham, says she has lived in the town all her life, with parents who worked in farming.

“I just assumed that all of those green fields surrounding Faversham would be there pretty much forever,” she said.

“So finding out the Duchy wanted to build 2,500 houses on the agricultural land near Brenley Corner was a huge shock.”

Ms Goatham stood as the Green candidate in the December 14 Abbey Ward by-election for Swale Borough Council but lost out to the Lib Dems.

“I joined the Green Party because with all of this housing stuff going on around the town I realised that you have to get quite political with this - that just having a protest group wasn’t going to be enough,” she said.

Co-founder Wendy Clarke argues the housing crisis in Kent is in fact one only of social housing - a far cry from the “Yimby” claims that we need to build more homes of all sorts.

“We need a lot of social housing, for example – a very different thing from any other need for housing, which we don’t feel exists,” she said.

In recent years the town has seen new-build estates spring up, including the Faversham Lakes development where a two-bed is currently for sale for £340,000, while a three-bed costs £410,000.

“The locals don’t need these houses - that seems to be a fact that people accept,” Ms Clarke said.

“The richer locals don’t need the houses, poor people aren’t getting them because they’re too dear, the affordable houses aren’t affordable and it’s a vicious circle - that’s what we’re against.”

Swale Borough Council is tasked by the government with hitting a target of more than 1,000 homes being built per year. When councils cannot demonstrate enough are being constructed, they have to look more favourably on developments they would usually refuse.

While Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove announced in December that local housing targets are officially “advisory”, councils still need to provide “rigorous” justification if they fail to meet the set goals.

Ms Goatham added: “Basically they have a builder’s charter at the moment. Everything is in favour - all the planning regulations favour the builders.”

Will housebuilding increase in Kent?

Despite claims to the contrary, groups such as PricedOut and Yimby Alliance argue the planning system is far too restrictive on developers.

The government funds Natural England - a non-departmental public body - which is known to often object to planning applications and housing developments around the country.

Earlier this year, the organisation even opposed its own proposals to build an office at a Cornwall beauty spot.

However, another public body - the Competition and Markets Authority - recently released a paper arguing for a move towards rules-based zoning rather than planning - making it much easier to build homes.

Zoning would see local and national government separate land into ‘zones’ for particular kinds of use - such as housing, shops or industry. In general, it allows development to happen in the appropriate area as long as it complies with a set of defined rules and criteria.

In Britain, zoning would differ from the current system by making it so that not every development requires planning permission in the way it exists now. It would mean local government, rather than approve developments individually, would instead decide if it complies with a set of rules.

The current UK government remains officially committed to a target of 300,000 homes being built every year. The closest it has got is 248,591 “net additional dwellings” in 2019-20.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Keir Starmer has declared himself a Yimby and says he wants to ensure planning is not “localised”.

So whether the government changes or not at the next election, the pressure to “pave over” parts of the Garden of England is only going to increase.

You can read all our Spotlight on Housing features here.

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