Proposals to build 150 homes across two agricultural fields have been submitted to Tonbridge and Malling council.

The plan from Gladman Properties is to build the homes on an L-shaped parcel of land between Stickens Lane and Clare Road in East Malling.

The application is only an outline one at the moment, with no details about what the houses would look like or how large they would be. However, the developer is promising there would be 90 market homes and 60 affordable properties, which meets the council’s policy of having 40% affordable homes.

The only fixed details in the application are for the site entrance, which is to be off Clare Road.

The developer talks of leaving a margin of open space to the south of the site, which borders the Maidstone to London railway line, and says that together with other areas, the open space will amount to 2.17 hectares of the 6.8-hectare site.

There will be a children’s play area and drainage pond.

The company acknowledges that the site is classified as countryside and is not currently designated for any development and therefore permission would not normally be granted.

But Gladman argues that since Tonbridge and Malling currently does not have a valid Local Plan – after its last one was rejected by a government inspector – and that since it can only demonstrate that it has 3.22 years of housing supply instead of the five years required by the government, the application must be allowed.

The developer points out that Tonbridge and Malling has 1,410 people waiting for accommodation on its housing register and says the new affordable homes will help cut that list.

The application has not come as a surprise to local residents as Gladman held a public consultation event on its plans in July, and also issued leaflets to most households in the area.

However, there is still some resentment.

The site was earmarked in the rejected TMBC Local Plan to become an extension of the Greenbelt which would have protected it from such development.

The Broadwater Action Group, which was set up to fight a different application from Berkeley Homes for 900 new houses on a site not far away, has told its members: “We tried to walk along the section of Clare Lane where traffic from the site is proposed to emerge and it was not a happy experience due to the lack of pavement and verges, the disregard of the speed limit by many motorists and the blind corner just further on from the entrance to the Malling School.”

The group argues that it is therefore not a sustainable location.

The Broadwater Farm application was withdrawn by the applicant in October.

The public are invited to submit their comments on the Clare Road scheme.

To see more planning applications and other public notices for your area, visit publicnoticeportal.uk

Details of the application can be viewed here.

Look for application number 23/03060