Bearsted residents should not be under the illusion that flooding at the Roundwell Park site is going to halt development there indefinitely.

Although as rain lashed down again this weekend, the controversial plot - also known as Lilk Meadow - was flooding again, Barry Seeley, a director of RM Brookes, the construction company that is to build 50 homes there on behalf of the Ramac Group, said construction would be quick once it started.

Mr Seeley said all the necessary drainage and flood prevention measures required when the Maidstone council had first granted planning permission back in 2016 had been agreed.

But there had then been a setback, when the owners sought a change to the planning permission a year ago to reconfigure the access, which meant that all the measures had to be examined and agreed again.

The company is currently waiting for the Environment Agency to sign off on the proposals it has submitted in order to discharge the flooding prevention condition attached to the planning permission.

He said: "We have submitted the extra information that the Agency wanted and we expect that to happen soon."

Then he predicted all of the site's 20 affordable homes and possibly half of the 30 market-value homes would be built within a year.

The plot of land lies between Sutton Street and Cross Keys and tends to flood from two directions.

From the east, the Lilk Stream flows under Sutton Street and directly into the site.

Then from the north, in heavy rain, water pours down Water Street, then down The Street and into the site near its junction with Cross Keys.

Mallings Drive resident Rosemary Harlow said: "They should have listened to local residents. We told them the land constantly floods.

"They call it Roundwell Park, but we know it as The Bogs."

Mrs Harlow said: "There are several springs in Water Street and water often runs down the road and into the village - the clue is in the name!

"I can't understand why the council allows development on areas known to flood - why don't they listen to local knowledge?"

But Mr Seeley denied the development was proving more challenging than anticipated.

He said: "The solution is a technical one with an infiltration drainage system."

He said water from the site would drain off into the Lilk Stream, at a controlled rate.

He said: "Part of the site will be left as wetlands. That is an area that is deliberately left to flood in extreme conditions."

As a precaution all the houses would be built with a floor level higher than any known historic flood level.

The borough council received 128 individual letters of objection and opposition from local ward councillors ahead of its grant of permission for the development back in July 2016.

Planning permission was originally granted to Country House Developments Ltd, which - like RM Brookes -is part of the Ramac Group, whose headquarters are in Riverhead, Sevenoaks.

to Maidstone council in December of last year, with a request that the condition be discharged. But 11 months later, the Environment Agency is still saying the company has not supplied sufficient information for the scheme to be approved.

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