A bid for a 300-home estate on land neighbouring a Kent animal park has sparked uproar – just two years after a much smaller scheme was rejected.

Developers have unveiled the controversial plans for the site next to Howletts on the outskirts of Canterbury, despite having plans for just 115 properties refused in 2021.

Already more than 200 objections have poured in against the scheme, which would be built on 40 acres of farmland on the edge of Littlebourne.

Campaigners say the development - which would have an access road onto the already congested A257 - could almost double the village’s population.

The proposal from Gladman Developments follows the refusal in 2021 of its first proposed scheme, which had been branded “pure madness” by objectors.

Its persistence to build on grade one agricultural land, and at greater numbers, has left villagers and local parish councils “flabbergasted”.

The site is not designated in the emerging Local Plan for housing and the previous scheme was thrown out by Canterbury City Council (CCC) on numerous grounds, including its potential harm to the countryside, the threat to the Stodmarsh Nature Reserve and the Little Stour chalk streams, insufficient ecological information, the impact of the extra traffic onto the A257, flooding risk and a lack of affordable housing.

But Gladman claims to have addressed many of the concerns and has designed its latest scheme using “garden city principles”, including providing a central village green, play areas, tree planting, a community orchard, and more affordable homes.

But the plans still face overwhelming opposition from four parish councils in the area, the Canterbury branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), The A257 Traffic Group and hundreds of residents.

Key objectors are Natural England and the Environment Agency (EA), which challenge Gladman’s proposals to deal with sewage from the site to meet “nutrient neutrality” requirements to protect the Stodmarsh Nature Reserve.

The developer is proposing an on-site treatment works and then discharging the treated effluent into the river water course, instead of the mains sewage system, which Natural England and the EA say is unacceptable.

The A257 Traffic Group fears the scale of the development risks causing “serious safety and efficiency” issues on the already busy route, making congestion even worse, and says the developer is offering no mitigating measures.

CPRE (Kent) condemns the loss of the highest quality farmland and says the proposed development is out of scale, adding an estimated 1,500 people to a village with a population just north of 1,600.

Among the objectors is Dr Peter Farrow, who is chairman of Littlebourne Parish Council and also leads an action group against the development in the village.

In his personal objection to the application, he urges CCC “to remove thoughts of massive sudden further growth in our village”.

He is also concerned the developer hopes many of the crucial details of the scheme can be approved after outline permission is granted.

“The applicant seeks outline approval for all matters except access and seeks, with various documents on landscape, sewage etc to allude to most of the reserved matters being manageable in detailed later discussions,” he says

“However, many of these are so absolutely fundamental to the consideration of the outline approval and unlikely to ever be resolvable that this is a manipulation of the planning process and should be rejected.”

In his objection, Stephen Farley says he fears Littlebourne could become a suburb of Canterbury if the development is allowed.

“The roads cannot cope easily now so what would happen with all the added traffic?” he said.

“Littlebourne has already been developed to a point beyond reasonable acceptance. We live in a country village which is already being diluted and this really must stop now.”

The application will be decided by CCC’s planning committee at a later date.