Opponents of plans for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) are expected to make their feelings heard at a council meeting this week.

Residents in Fant are due to attend the Maidstone planning committee meeting on Thursday where two applications for HMOs are to be heard.

Fant has the highest proportion of HMOs of any ward in the borough and people are pushing back at what they see as unwelcome changes caused by HMOs, with pressure on parking, multiple unsightly waste bins and the loss of the family neighbourhood.

Cllr Kimmy Milham (Green) said that while HMOs in appropriate locations were fine, Fant had been inundated over the last few years and their presence was driving families out of the area.

With developers snapping up two and three-bedroom homes and converting them to HMOs, it was removing the opportunity for young families to find housing, she added.

The two applications for consideration are for an alteration to the roofs of numbers 3 and 5 Bower Place.

The work has already been carried out when the owner extended the property and converted each house into a five-bedoom HMO. He is now seeking retrospective permission.

The second application is for the conversion of Grange Park in St Michael’s Road.

Once an annex to the Grange Moor Hotel, the plan is to convert the building into a 13-bedroom HMO.

Cllr Paul Harper (Fant and Oakwood Ind) said: “This is slightly different from the usual HMO application and I’m sure there could be an acceptable conversion here, but the applicant is trying to squeeze too much in.

“The only shared living space is in the basement with very little natural light and there is no outdoor amenity space at all.”

Both applications are revised submissions of plans that had previously been refused permission, but this time planning officers are recommending they be accepted.

One St Michael’s Road resident, who has lived in the area for 15 years, said: “I shall be at the meeting.

“I’m most concerned about the Grange Park application.

“I’ve been in that building when it was a hotel and the bedrooms are tiny. They would not be conducive to comfortable living as a permanent home.

“The only communal area is underground.

“If you want people to care about the community in which they live, forcing them to live in such cramped conditions as this is not the way to do it.”

Another resident was concerned about Bower Place.

He said: “The owner was refused permission. Then he was refused permission on appeal. But he just kept building.

”He has ignored all the rules and the wishes of the local community.

“He’s blighted the lives of local residents - lots of my neighbours feel the same.

“What he’s done with the extensions and everything - it’s total overkill.”

Cllr Harper said: “There is a huge level of cynicism about the planning process across Fant.

“People have almost given up hope.”

The council meeting will be held in Maidstone Town Hall on Thursday, starting at 6pm.