Champagne corks will be popping in many homes this week after residents won a victory over developers.

Against most people’s expectations, an application to build 52 homes over an orchard at Ivy Farm in East Malling was soundly refused at a meeting of the Tonbridge and Malling full council.

The councillors’ decision flew in the face of advice from the borough’s chief planning officer, James Bailey, who had already exercised special powers he has under the council’s constitution twice before, to stop the application being refused by the area planning committee.

A motion to refuse came after four hours of debate and after councillors had heard from 23 pubic speakers on the issues - 22 opposed to the scheme, and one, Andy Wilford from the builder Esquire Developments, in favour.

The voting was 30 for refusal, four in favour of the application, with no abstentions.

Even the Conservative leader of the council, Cllr Matt Boughton, voted for refusal against his own officers’ advice.

Kate Moore, one of the objectors, said after the meeting: “We had to wait till nearly midnight to get it, but it was a fantastic result.

“We are all planning to meet in the village pub this weekend to celebrate!”

The scheme for 52 homes on a working pear and apple orchard was touted as likely to provide 21 affordable housing units, but objectors said there would be adverse effects on nearby listed buildings and on the East Malling Conservation Area.

Traffic from the development would either go north via Chapel Street through the narrow East Malling High Street, where the listed buildings have already suffered damage from vehicle collisions, or south through the Wateringbury crossroads, which has the highest level of pollution in the borough.

The chairman of Teston Parish Council, Peter Couling, was among those to speak against the plan, saying the extra traffic would adversely affect conservation areas in three villages: East Malling, Wateringbury and Teston.

An area planning committee had considered the application three times before.

On the first occasion, last October, they were about to refuse permission when Mr Bailey suggested they should defer for further evidence to be produced on the possible adverse effect on nearby listed buildings and the East Malling Conservation area.

At a meeting in January, after that report (which said there would be less than substantial harm) was produced, the area committee voted to refuse permission on four grounds, but Mr Bailey exercised powers that he has under the council’s constitution to call in the application to a meeting of the full council.

He said he did not believe the grounds given for refusal would stand up at an appeal hearing and there could be an award of costs against the borough, which could be substantial.

The area committee were obliged to consider the application again in February, having been given a secret report on potential cost implications, but again they voted to refuse, adding another two grounds for refusal.

However, because Mr Bailey had exercised his special powers, their decision was deemed a recommendation only, and the matter had to go before a full council hearing on Tuesday night.

Because the area committee is largely comprised of local councillors who know the area well, whereas the full council has members from right across the borough, there were fears among protesters that the officers’ advice would hold sway.

Mr Bailey argued that the site was a sustainable location on the edge of the village and because the council had no Local Plan and could demonstrate only a 2.8-year supply of housing land - when the government requires five years - a ”tilted balance” in favour of development must be applied.

The gist of the residents’ many objections was that the site was not sustainable.

The village only has a bus once a week, and although there is a train station, walking to it from the development would be dangerous because of a half-sized pavement in Chapel Street, and because passengers would have to climb 39 stairs to reach the station platform, which would make it unusable for many with disabilities, or even parents with pushchairs.

A school girl had recently been injured walking on the pavement when she was clipped by the wing mirror of a passing van.

The dangers of Wateringbury Road itself were confirmed by Cllr Steve Crisp (Green) who said he had tried to cycle along the road, but the experience had proved so frightening because of being passed too closely by speeding cars that he would never do so again.

He said: “God knows, no children from this development would ever get to school except by car.”

Cllr Roger Roud (Lib Dem) said that the residents of the new homes would be entirely car-dependent, so “clearly this site is unsustainable”.

Cllr Dennis King was sceptical about the whole concept of sustainability. He asked: “Sustainability? What the hell does that really mean?”

Several speakers talked about the strain the extra homes would place on local services, with one resident, Eliza Peacock, advising that patients were already waiting three weeks even to get a telephone appointment with their GP.

Her views was supported by a submission read out at the meeting from Dr Becky Prince, the GP Clinical Lead for Diabetes for Kent and Medway, who said the Malling surgery had already seen significant population growth, but that there had been no extra funding for more GPs.

She said that any assumption that the local surgery could simply absorb more patients without an adverse effect on the level of care was wrong.

Another concern raised was the harm that would be caused to badgers who had eight entrances on the plot leading to a sett in the adjacent woodland.

Members heard that before the application was submitted, an attempt had been to destroy the badger sett, which had resulted in a police investigation as badgers are a protected species.

Just two hours before the start of the meeting on Tuesday, the planning officers had issued a supplementary guidance note to say that before the details of any final application were approved, Esquire Developments would be required to submit a full badger survey undertaken by a competent ecologist to ascertain the extent of badger use on the site.

Mitigation measures could then be agreed, said officers.

But that drew some criticism from Cllr Mike Taylor (Ind Alliance), the cabinet member for planning, who said: “This application without a badger report is not complete and should never have been validated (by officers) in the first place.”

Cllr Michelle Tatton (Lib Dem), in a well researched speech, gave her colleagues the confidence they needed to go against the officers’ advice.

She said there was little likelihood of an award for costs against the council even if the application went to appeal and the council lost.

She said: “Planning is a matter of judgement and there are clear, legitimate planning grounds for refusal even if the inspector reaches a different judgement.”

She said: “The exercise of judgement lies with us (not officers.)”

She said Esquire Developments had taken 13 cases of refused planning permission to appeal and had lost 10 of them.

However, four councillors still voted in favour of granting permission. They were Cllrs Christopher Brown (Con), Angus Bennison (Lab), James Clokey (Lib Dem) and Kim Tanner (Con).

Afterwards, objector Mrs Moore said that residents were not worried about an appeal. She said: “There is a risk, but I don’t think Esquire will bother.

“There would be a cost for them and I doubt that they would want to face the residents of East Malling again!”

Another objector, Marc Page, said: “I am absolutely delighted with the outcome. Of course, there is an element of caution that there may be an appeal, but I am confident that even if there is, we will again.”

Esquire has been contacted for comment.

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

Details of the planning application can be seen on the council’s website, under application reference number 22/01570.