Tonbridge and Malling Local Plan: Minister Overrules Vote

Tonbridge and Malling councillors refused to publish the borough’s draft Local Plan on Thursday night. The housing minister overruled them the next day.

Matthew Pennycook MP has directed the council to open a public consultation on the same plan by 11 September. He is using the Secretary of State’s default powers under section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. The plan sets out where 20,106 homes are to go across the borough by 2042.

The direction was published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 4 September. The council confirmed the same day that it will comply.

What the minister has ordered

The letter directs the council to do five things:

• Start the Regulation 19 consultation by no later than 11 September 2026, and run it for a minimum of six weeks.
• Submit the plan for examination by no later than 31 December 2026, with only the minor modifications that responses make necessary. Anything more significant must be put to the Secretary of State.
• Take no step to withdraw the plan, and report monthly to the minister’s officials on its progress.
• Progress the plan up to the end of the examination.
• Publish a revised Local Development Scheme by 11 September carrying both of those deadlines.

The directions “will remain in force until withdrawn by the Secretary of State”. The letter adds that if the council fails to comply, the minister “will consider taking further action”.

There is one opening. The council has until 18 September to set out any exceptional circumstances that in its view make intervention inappropriate. The letter is explicit that doing so “neither alters nor removes the direction”.

The four reasons given

Mr Pennycook sets out why he considers the statutory test met. Three of the four figures are about how far behind the borough already is:

• The current Local Plan was adopted in September 2007, so it is 19 years old and its policies are “likely to be significantly out of date”.
• The council has failed the Housing Delivery Test three years running, scoring 60 per cent in 2023, 54 per cent in 2024 and 63 per cent in 2025.
• It cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply. The most recent published figure is 2.89 years.
• The affordability ratio in the borough was 12.03 in 2025, against 9.58 across the South East and 7.8 across England.

Without an up-to-date plan, the letter argues, the council is “vulnerable to piecemeal and speculative development”. The minister also says the 3 September decision put the December submission deadline “in serious jeopardy”, and risked the whole plan having to restart under the new plan-making system.

Why councillors said no

The objection was water, and it is not new.

South East Water told the council in writing on 17 December 2025 that it could not accommodate growth in this borough beyond its own 2024 forecast. The company’s registered office is on Rocfort Road in Snodland, inside the borough. We set out that letter in full when the vote was called: see the plan councillors were asked to publish.

Since then the council has been through the government’s Water Delivery Taskforce at Defra, and South East Water has produced a position statement. The officer report to Thursday’s meeting says that statement concludes there is a “credible pathway” to the supplies needed, but that “further technical work, regulatory approvals and investment decisions will be required”.

A joint letter from Defra and the housing ministry on 6 August went no further. The officer report records that it confirms the government considers there to be a pathway, “whilst recognising that uncertainties remain and that it cannot provide absolute assurance regarding future delivery”.

That was the gap councillors would not cross. Cllr Matt Boughton, the Leader of the council, said afterwards:

“Councillors were firm that we should not pursue the Local Plan until there was a guarantee of water supply to every property the Government wishes to see built across the borough.”

He called the direction an intervention that “flies in the face of the devolution agenda”, and said the government “should not use its powers to overrule democratically elected Councillors”.

The officers had already written down what would happen

The risk was on the page in front of members when they voted. Paragraph 7.3 of the report says that if the council did not consider the plan ready, “the Government could then exercise its discretion and intervene to direct the Council to submit the Plan as it stands”.

It took one day.

What it means for you

The consultation is the last chance to comment before an inspector takes over. Regulation 19 is the formal stage at which residents, businesses and anyone else can make representations on the plan the council intends to submit. After that it goes to independent examination.

• It opens by 11 September and must run for at least six weeks. The council’s officers had proposed 10 September to midnight on 25 October. The council has not yet published a closing date under the direction, so check tmbc.gov.uk/local-plan before you rely on one.
• Representations at this stage are about legal compliance and soundness, not simply whether you like a site. The inspector decides whether the plan was positively prepared and is justified, effective and consistent with national policy.
• The plan becomes a material consideration as soon as it is published. The officer report notes the weight it carries will grow as it moves through examination, and that landowners and developers may bring forward applications on allocated and unallocated sites in the meantime.
• The council’s own leader is encouraging objections. Cllr Boughton said the council would “encourage every resident to tell the Government that we should not be planning to build more homes than our water infrastructure is capable of delivering”.

The scale has not changed since the vote was called. The borough’s local housing need stands at 20,106 dwellings over the plan period, 1,117 a year, and about 71 per cent of Tonbridge and Malling is Green Belt. The largest allocations are at Borough Green, north east Tonbridge, Kiln Barn Road in East Malling, Broadwater Farm at Kings Hill and Holborough Lakes at Snodland.

One of those is already out of the council’s hands. The 1,300-home scheme at Kiln Barn Road was called in by the Secretary of State on 20 August, after councillors resolved to refuse it.

Related

• Tonbridge planning news: what is in the Local Plan and where the allocations are.
• The plan councillors were asked to publish: the 20,106 figure and the water company’s letter in full.
• East Malling’s 1,300 homes called in: the borough’s biggest single application, taken over by ministers.

Sources

• Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council: Local Plan Intervention letter, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 4 September 2026, for the direction, the five requirements, the Housing Delivery Test scores, the 2.89-year land supply and the affordability ratio.
• Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, Local Plan to proceed following Government intervention, 4 September 2026, and Council to review next steps for Local Plan, 3 September 2026, for the council’s response and the Leader’s quotes.
• Report of the Director of Planning, Housing and Regulatory Services to Full Council, 3 September 2026, for the housing need figure, the water evidence, the consultation timetable and the risk assessment.
• Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, Local Plan for the current position and consultation details.

Update, 14 September 2026: the consultation opened on 11 September and closes at 11.59pm on 25 October. The minutes of the 3 September meeting have since been published: the amendment to pause the plan was carried by 33 votes to 9, with one abstention, out of 43 members eligible to vote. See the consultation and the water shortfall behind it.