There’s good news on the horizon for those Maidstone residents who feared that all the borough’s best loved beauty spots were going to be swept away by ambitious house-building targets.

Maidstone council is seeking to find plots for 18,560 new homes to be built in the borough by 2031 and many people have been resentful at the greenfield sites already allocated for housing in its draft Local Plan.

But now the council is looking to include a new land designation called Landscapes of Local Value (LLV) in the Local Plan to protect the most treasured areas.

The designation replaces the protection formerly given to Special Landscape Areas (SLA), which are no longer allowed since the demise of the Kent Structure Plan, but planning consultant Chris Berry said that the old SLAs could not simply be re-designated. He argued the new LLVs would need to “evidenced” with proof they met sound criteria.

Officers suggested five areas scored highly and should be made LLVs.

They were the Greensand Ridge (stretching all the way from Boughton Malherbe through Sutton Valence to Yalding), the three river valleys of the Loose, Medway and Len, and the land that provided the setting of the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The officers’ suggestions already represented a major concession to the “green” lobby, with several controversial sites around J8 at Hollingbourne, notably Woodcut Farm and Waterside Park, both now being given protection. At the request of Cllr Stephen Paine (Con) the scope of the Medway Valley area was also extended to include Fant Farm.

But the proposals did not go far enough for members of the strategic planning, sustainability and transportation committee.

Visiting member Cllr Brian Clark (Lib Dem) pointed out that two fields off Cripple Street (near Broadoak Avenue and Westward Road respectively) had been excluded from the proposed Loose Valley area which ”made no sense” as they were part of the valley’s open space.

A motion to add in the fields was proposed by Cllr Clive English (Lib Dem) and passed.

Members were also unhappy that parts of Harrietsham and Lenham had been excluded from the Setting of the AONB. They argued they were equally as important as the parts included.

Furthermore, officers had rejected proposals for an LLV in the Low Weald around Headcorn, Marden and Staplehurst, saying it had not ticked enough boxes in the borough’s landscape capacity survey.

Mr Berry said: “The Low Weald does not constitute a coherent contiguous area of high quality landscape.”

Cllrs Valerie Springett (Con) and Paulina Stockell (Con) both argued the surveyors had got it wrong and failed to give the Low Weald enough ticks. Cllr Richard Thick (Con) described the officers’ analysis as “very subjective”.

The planners were told to go away and re-assess both areas.