Villagers said they felt “furious” after councillors failed to reject a planning application for scores of homes on an orchard that is home to badgers.

Instead, members of Tonbridge and Malling council’s planning committee deferred making a decision on an outline application for 52 homes at Ivy Farm off Wateringbury Road in East Malling until its next meeting at the end of October.

The council chamber at Kings Hill where the debate was held was packed with protesters on Wednesday, after the residents closest to the proposed development distributed 1,000 leaflets throughout East Malling appealing for support.

Some wore shirts with a badger on the front, in sympathy with the animals known to live on the site. Badgers are a protected species and are supposed to be left undisturbed.

Many councillors spoke against the proposals even though planning officers had recommended approval.

Cllr Trudy Dean (Lib Dem) even proposed a motion to refuse, but it was not immediately taken up by committee chairman Cllr Wendy Palmer (Borough Green and Platt Independent Alliance).

The debate lasted two-and-a-half hours and as it went on it became clear the committee might vote to refuse the application.

So the council’s head of planning, James Bailey, stepped in to suggest that instead, they should defer the matter for further reports.

Jason Allen, who lives next to the orchard, said: “We were all disgusted. There was a very strong leaning among councillors toward rejection, but the planning officer cajoled them into going for deferral.

“We were furious.”

Earlier eight residents had been given the opportunity to speak for three minutes each against the scheme.

Mark Crowcroft, who lives in a Grade II-listed cottage opposite the site, said he disagreed “in every detail” with the officers’ conclusion that the setting of his 17th century property would not be harmed by the development.

He spoke against “the decimation of the area’s nature, beauty and history” and warned against increasing traffic on “an already over-used and dangerous road”.

Chapel Street resident Fiona Reynolds agreed, saying Chapel Street and East Malling High Street were already “saturated” with cars.

Jonathan Colville said it could already take “20 to 25 minutes” to get through East Malling at peak times because of the traffic.

He described the proposed point of access as being “very dark, narrow and overhung by trees” and suggested that if it were moved 40m to the south, it would be better for everyone.

Frances Saunders described how two months before the planning application was submitted in 2022 a badger sett on the land “that had been there for decades” was illegally levelled and the holes blocked up.

She said: “The police investigated this crime, but unfortunately no prosecutions were made.”

Subsequently, ecology reports had stated there were no badgers on the site, but she said: “Despite the attempt to destroy the sett, a large and active part remains in the adjoining woodland and over the last two years the badgers have been digging to reclaim the destroyed part of their sett and have reopened four sett entrances in the orchard.

“The developer is trying to pretend the badgers are not there. Please don’t let them get away with this.”

Jason Allen spoke of the “many instances of road rage, smashed mirrors, written-off cars and speeding” on roads nearby.

He pointed out there was a fatality in Wateringbury Road in October, yet the planning report had not mentioned that.

He warned that parking allocations on new developments tended to be “woefully inadequate” and so was likely to lead to overflow parking from the new residents in Wateringbury Road itself, further restricting the carriageway and adding to the dangers.

His wife, Natasha Allen, spoke of the loss of privacy her family would suffer because the proposed access road ran alongside their boundary fence.

Wateringbury Road was 1.5m higher than the orchard and their own land, she said, so the access road would require a ramp going up to join it.

She said: “The result will be that anyone walking on that road will be able to look over our fence into the windows of our house and the entirety of our garden.

“During the night, the lights of vehicles using the access road will shine straight into our bedroom windows.”

Dawn Thomas warned the site was not sustainable, with no buses serving it. She said cars and taxis would inevitably be used, adding to the traffic pressures “on this unsuitabe road”.

Marc Page pointed out that the crash report accompanying the application used statistics from 2021 and took no account of the rise in the number of accidents since then.

He warned that the presence of a railway station in East Malling did not make the site sustainable because the platforms were “inaccessible to the infirm, the elderly and the disabled, and to parents with prams,” because of the number of steps they would have to negotiate.

Steve Brett warned the application should not be viewed in isolation as East Malling Trust was ”pushing hard to develop huge tracts of land” around the village.

He cited its proposed 1,300-home Bradbourne garden village, while Gladman had proposals for 150 homes at Stickens Lane, with an additional 100 homes from Dandara already in The Sweetings.

He said people already became “so angry and frustrated“ by the traffic in East Malling that he had on two occasions seen drivers get out of their cars and “come close to having a fight”.

However, Andy Wilford, head of land and planning at Esquire Developments, which submitted the planning application, expressed an altogether different view.

He said: “We are a local award-winning SME housebuilder based in Longfield. Our homes are eco-friendly, well designed and create a community in which both new and existing residents integrate successfully.

“We are an all-electric developer - we no longer install gas boilers.

“This scheme has a low density of 21 dwellings per hectare, which respects its location. It has extensive landscaping and buffers and nearly two acres of open space, allowing for a biodiversity net gain of 30%.”

Mr Wilford promised: “We will be the developer and we will deliver an exceptional scheme of the highest quality in both layout and design.”

Leader of the council Cllr Matt Boughton (Con) expressed his astonishment at the earlier destruction of the badger sett.

He said: “The very fact that we’ve got a situation where the police have had to investigate and in a roundabout way comment on a planning application really does not enable any trust whatsoever on the activities that may or may not have been happening on this site.

“I cannot for the life of me understand what the agent, or applicant, or landowner was thinking of, to get themselves into this position.

“Whether that happened or didn’t happen, who knows? The police have investigated, but that is enough - the fact that the suspicion was raised - and by the very people who live nearest the site.

“I think it’s outrageous because all it does is suggest that something dodgy is going on.

“I don’t know whether there is or isn’t. I’m not making any judgment on that, but I just find this baffling.”

He added: “I’ve never seen a planning application in which I’ve read so much about badgers.”

Cllr Robin Betts (Con) proposed the motion to defer, which was passed by 15 votes to one, with one abstention - Cllr Steve Crisp (Green).

Find out about planning applications that affect you at the Public Notice Portal.

The next meeting of the planning committee is scheduled for October 30.

Details of the planning application can be seen on the council’s website, under application reference number 22/01570.