Plans for a new self-storage warehouse near M&S on a retail park have been rejected for being too big.

Cinch Self Storage sought permission to create a five-storey warehouse on Plot 8 of Eclipse Park in Maidstone.

The site is the last remaining undesignated plot on Eclipse Park after permission was granted for light industrial buildings and a Costa Coffee drive-thru on the two plots next door in May last year.

The location on the estate, that has been developed by Gallagher Properties, is close to the M&S and Next superstores and lies opposite the Cavell Park Care Home. Homes in Sittingbourne Road and Heathwood Drive lie closeby to the west.

It covers 0.39 hectares.

The company had planned 13 parking spaces, plus two disability spaces and one large lorry space for the building, which would have been 15m high with five floors and a small office on the ground floor.

Cinch planned to set the warehouse back 25m from the road and provide landscaping, but that was not sufficient for Maidstone council.

The planning committee decided the building would be a “jarring and incongruous development in the area” because of its footprint, height, and massing, together with its “utilitarian appearance”.

It would become “an overwhelming presence in the streetscene and be highly visible from public vantage points.”

The proposal had been opposed by Boxley Parish Council for exactly the same reasons and the parish also had concerns about adding extra traffic to the already often congested Bearsted Road.

Seven residents also objected to the plans. One said: “While I see there is a need to use this currently redundant space and appreciate that to create work for the local community is beneficial, I do not see the need for a building of this scale.

“At five storeys, it is simply too tall and is not in keeping with any other structure in the local area.

“Next and Marks and Spencers are both two storeys.”

Cllr Tony Harwood (Lib Dem), who proposed the motion to refuse permission, said: “Members were clear that the height, scale and utilitarian design of the proposed self-storage units was totally inappropriate at this high-profile urban edge location, especially in such close proximity to adjacent houses in Sittingbourne Road.”

“Maidstone can do much better than this.”

It was the company’s second attempt to gain permission for the warehouse.

A previous application in 2023 had also been rejected for much the same reasons.

In the second application, the company had moved the building further away from the road in the hope of making it less overbearing, but that proved to be not enough to convince the council.

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

Details of the latest application can be found on the Maidstone council website, under application reference number 24/503497.

The earlier application was 23/504061.