A city’s controversial traffic zoning plans will be scrapped while new land is earmarked for thousands of homes.

Canterbury City Council (CCC) laid out its radical vision today amid a wholesale overhaul of its local plan.

The Labour-Liberal Democrat administration has officially ditched the now-ousted Conservative plans to slice the city into traffic zones.

The coalition will now consult the public on fresh proposals for more than 9,000 homes and transport schemes throughout the district until 2040.

Under the plan, the authority will build an average of 1,149 new homes per year, council papers say.

Although the long-term project will include 4,000 fewer homes than the previous version, the focus is said to be on “bus passes not bypasses”.

Prominent decision makers today voiced hope the new approach will help “restore pride” in the district.

CCC’s previous Tory administration was in the process of drawing up its local plan when they were turfed out at May’s local elections and replaced with a new Labour - Liberal Democrat coalition.

In October 2022 the Tory council under the leadership of Ben Fitter-Harding consulted the public for their views on the controversial plan, which included separating Canterbury into five “zones” with restricted car travel between them, and two new bypass roads on either side of the city.

That version of the plan received the views of more than 2,000 residents, but when the new coalition administration was elected, they promised to rework the proposals.

Traffic zones and the “Eastern movement corridor” bypass - originally set to stretch for about four miles from Sturry to the A2 at Bridge - have both been done away with in the new plan.

The new plan allocates sites for the building of 9,346 homes in the district, down from 13,495 in the previous version - as the new version covers up to 2040 rather than 2045.

The council itself does not buy the land or build homes, but instead earmarks sites for developers to come forward for planning permission to deliver homes.

The authority says it will provide four new primary schools and a Special Educational Needs school (SEND) in the district.

A further two secondary schools will also serve coastal areas however it is unclear where new establishments will be placed.

Blean Primary School will be relocated, and a new one built at the new settlement near the university.

The other three primary schools will be at the Merton Park development, Hollow Lane in Canterbury, and Brooklands in Whitstable.

The SEND school will also be at Brooklands.

One new site for development is land north of the University of Kent, which is set to host a “new rural settlement” of about 2,000 homes.

The “Merton Park” site, originally slated to host 2,075 homes, is still included and increased to 2,250 properties.

Under the previous plan, the village of Adisham was set to host a 3,200-home estate at Cooting Farm, which would have linked it to neighbouring Aylesham in the Dover district.

Residents previously told KentOnline the proposal would leave the village “swamped and destroyed”.

Now, the proposal has been binned in the new plan.

David Conder, of Conserve Adisham’s Rural Environment (CARE), said he was “delighted” at the bid being dropped.

“We’re very pleased that CCC have listened,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

“The scheme would have had multiple and irreversible bad impacts.

“There were all sorts of roads that certainly could not take this sort of development.”

Welcoming the authority’s emphasis on buses, he added: “With all the new development that is happening in the district, the county and indeed the Southeast of England a move towards public transport is a very sensible approach.”

“East Kent is very badly provided for public transport so if they do make an effort on that that’s welcome.”

The council has previously stressed plans for a “bus-first strategy”.

Cllr Alex Ricketts (Lib Dem) on Friday told the LDRS that the new plan will stress “bus passes not bypasses”.

He explained that the council intends to secure more bus services for the district’s rural villages.

“Through the infrastructure improvements we hope to encourage the bus companies to run through more routes,” he said.

In the short term - over the first five years of the plan - the council plans to bring in “hopper services” of smaller buses and will try to develop “on-demand” bus services.

The on-demand services will allow people at less-used bus stops to call on smaller buses online.

“There are a couple operating already where people will call in and go we need a bus, particularly for the villages that bus service will only run when there’s demand for it,” Cllr Ricketts said.

“Hopper buses would be smaller, we’re hoping that they'd be electric as well so they'd have less impact on the environment.”

The Bencare View development of 220 homes off Thanet Way near Whitstable was approved by the council in December, and includes a car park for a “Park and Bus” service.

Cllr Ricketts continued: “Things like the Whitstable park & bus will potentially be one of the earlier things to be delivered because those plans are already in train.”

The car park will allow residents to park up and then use regular bus services into Whitstable - unlike Canterbury’s Park & Ride, which uses specific buses and is set to expand from April with the reopening of the Sturry Road Park & Ride.

However, the transport changes will come in waves over the 15 years of the plan.

Cllr Ricketts said: “There are some things in there which are going to take much longer to be delivered because they obviously depend on those houses being built and those developments coming in.

“It’s not all going to happen all at once, it’s not going to be radical in terms of what people see straight away as soon as its published.”

The responses residents gave to the previous version of the plan, as well as views on the new version, will all be submitted when the council takes the policy to government for approval.

Council leader Cllr Alan Baldock (Lab) told the LDRS: “People said what they said about the last local plan and for good and for bad we want to hear all of it.

“We’ve already looked through all of that and that’s why the changes that we’re talking about today have been made.

“We’ve reflected on what people have said and clearly we weren’t going to be able to take residents with us on this new plan unless we changed what we were doing.”

“I just hope this local plan shapes a district that our residents can be proud of and their children can grow up in, and it’s a place they're really glad to live in.

Cllr Ricketts added that their priority is “Restoring pride in where you live, and that’s what we hope not just from the local plan but from everything that we’re trying to do.”

The council’s cabinet is set to approve consulting the public on the plans at a meeting on March 11.

Shortly after that, a 12-week consultation where the public can give their take will begin.

The council will then alter some of the plans accordingly, undertake a second consultation, and then send all of the responses and the final version of the plan to the government’s Planning Inspectorate.

The Inspectorate will analyse the plans to see if they’re workable, and the council needs to send them off to the government by June 30 2025.

The largest new housing plans across Canterbury district

Canterbury City

Southwest Canterbury, including Thanington - 3,201 homes

Merton Park, South Canterbury - 2,250 homes

Land north of Hollow Lane, Canterbury - 800 homes

Land north of University of Kent campus - 2,000 homes

Wincheap - 1,000 homes

Whitstable

South Whitstable - 1,870 homes

Brooklands farm - 1,400 homes

Land south of Thanet Way (Benacre View, already granted) - 220 homes

Bodkin Farm - 250 homes

Herne Bay

Land west of Thornden Wood Road - 150 homes

The Villages

Hersden, Bread & Cheese Field - 150 homes

Littlebourne, The Hill - 300 homes

Sturry, North of Popes Lane - 110 homes