A Maidstone extra care appeal has secured permission for 18 additional specialist housing units in Boughton Monchelsea despite conflict with local settlement policies. Inspector Guy Davies allowed the scheme on 26th October 2026 after applying the revised national planning framework.
The decision also challenges the weight placed on Maidstone’s local requirement for 20% biodiversity net gain. The Inspector considered that requirement materially inconsistent with the new national approach for an unallocated site and gave it very limited weight, with the statutory 10% objective still applying.
I think the Maidstone extra care case is significant for two reasons. First, it shows how the policy route for meeting unmet housing need can work outside a village even where there is no formally defined settlement boundary. Secondly, it explains why a higher local biodiversity percentage may not determine a decision after national policy changes.
What the Maidstone extra care scheme would provide
Clarendon Homes appealed Maidstone Borough Council’s refusal of application 25/502235/FULL on land behind 58 Church Street, Boughton Monchelsea. The permission is for an extension of an existing Class C2 extra care development known as Genn Park, with 18 further residential units, an expanded clubhouse, new roads, parking and landscaping.
The council’s description refers to demolition of existing stables and a shed, followed by seven pairs of semi-detached bungalows and four detached bungalows. The Inspector used the application description because there had been no agreed formal change to it, while recognising that both descriptions related to the same proposal.
A unilateral undertaking restricts primary occupation to residents aged 55 or over who receive a basic care package, together with their spouses. The Inspector regarded this obligation as necessary to ensure the proposal really delivered specialist accommodation rather than unrestricted market housing. That distinction is important when evaluating policy support for Class C2 proposals.
Our guide to specialist housing planning explains why the nature of care provision and occupation restrictions may be decisive when councils assess elderly accommodation.
Why the site conflicted with Maidstone’s local plan
Boughton Monchelsea is identified as a smaller village within the adopted spatial strategy. The current policies do not define settlement boundaries for such villages. The Inspector examined an earlier mapped boundary and the physical relationship of the land to the village, concluding that the appeal site lay beside but outside the settlement.
Policy LPRHOU7 supports specialist residential accommodation in suitable locations but includes a criterion referring to a site adjacent to a settlement boundary. As this smaller village has no mapped boundary, the proposal could not satisfy that wording. Public transport links were also limited, even though the village had a shop, public house, social facilities, allotments and other day-to-day amenities.
The Inspector therefore found conflict with the adopted local plan and the Boughton Monchelsea Neighbourhood Development Plan. He did not, however, identify significant countryside harm. The site was visually enclosed by existing housing on three sides and allotments on the fourth, and the proposal would relate closely to the existing Genn Park development.
These circumstances made the Maidstone extra care proposal materially different from an isolated development in open countryside. Policy conflict was real, but it did not automatically settle the overall planning balance.
How the new national settlement policy changed the balance
Policy S5(1)(j) of the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework can support development outside settlements where it meets an evidenced unmet housing need, is physically well related to an existing settlement and is of an appropriate scale in relation to available infrastructure.
The parties agreed that Maidstone had a 4.5-year supply of deliverable housing land. The appellant later referred to a lower figure of 3.6 years, but the Inspector used the agreed 4.5 years because the lower figure had not been evidenced before him.
The Inspector found the appeal land physically well related to Boughton Monchelsea, being almost surrounded by existing development and not readily experienced as part of the wider countryside. The proposed 18-unit extension was proportionate to the local infrastructure and would improve communal facilities for the existing specialist housing scheme.
Crucially, he observed that national policy did not distinguish the size of an existing settlement for the relevant S5 criterion. The Maidstone extra care scheme therefore gained support under S5 despite conflict with a local policy drafted around mapped settlement boundaries. Our guide to building outside a settlement boundary explores how this test differs from a simple line on a proposals map.
National policies on meeting housing need and providing specialist accommodation added further support. The Inspector accepted an identified need for extra care housing in the borough, which was not disputed by the council.
Why the local 20% biodiversity requirement carried little weight
Maidstone’s adopted policy LPRSP14 sought a minimum 20% biodiversity net gain for new residential development. The new national policy N2(3), however, says that biodiversity enhancement above the statutory objective should only be a requirement when specified in up-to-date plan policies for particular site allocations.
The appeal land was not allocated. The Inspector therefore gave the blanket 20% requirement very limited weight because it was materially inconsistent with the revised national decision-making policy. This did not remove biodiversity net gain obligations. The development remained subject to the statutory 10% requirement and the biodiversity gain plan condition.
There were uncertainties about the exact baseline habitat area, whether off-site units would be needed and how new habitats would be monitored. The Inspector considered these matters capable of being resolved at the statutory biodiversity gain plan stage, especially in light of the ecological advice and updated metric supplied with the application.
The Maidstone extra care outcome should not be read as a blanket ruling that councils can never seek more than 10%. The decision addresses the interaction between this particular unallocated site, national policy wording and a broadly expressed local percentage requirement. Our biodiversity net gain guide explains the statutory condition and the evidence normally needed before development starts.
Why conflict with the development plan did not prevent consent
Residents raised concerns about traffic, visibility, construction disturbance and the effect on property values. The highway authority did not object. The Inspector found insufficient evidence of an unacceptable accident risk or significant congestion, and he treated short-term construction impacts as capable of mitigation through a condition.
He also explained that private property values are not themselves a material planning consideration. Although that is a familiar principle, it mattered because concerns from existing occupiers of Genn Park formed part of the representations.
The planning balance recognised moderate harm arising from the spatial strategy conflict and limited public transport access. Against that were the benefits of meeting an identified specialist housing need, a site well related to the village and national policy support for the scheme. The Inspector found the benefits “are not substantially outweighed by the moderate disadvantages” of the location and accessibility.
The Maidstone extra care scheme was accordingly allowed despite conflict with the development plan taken as a whole. The Inspector considered the revised Framework a material consideration sufficient to justify a decision otherwise than in accordance with the plan.
This was a section 78 Planning Inspectorate appeal, not a judicial ruling and not a universal permission for Class C2 accommodation in smaller villages. Its wider value lies in the careful distinction between local policy conflict, the amended national balance, and the legal tools securing occupation and biodiversity commitments.
Appeal decision and sources
Inspector Guy Davies allowed appeal 6010539 on 26th October 2026, concerning Maidstone Borough Council application 25/502235/FULL at land rear of 58 Church Street, Boughton Monchelsea. Read the official Planning Inspectorate appeal record. The appeal decision is also available on AppealBase. The brief quotation from the Inspector is reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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