It concerned two called-in applications for land south and east of Sittingbourne and west of Teynham in Kent: proposals for up to 8,400 homes, together with commercial floorspace and major new road infrastructure. Understood to be the longest inquiry for a housing-led scheme the Planning Inspectorate has ever considered, it ran from March to October 2025 and attracted national coverage, including by the BBC, and the Guardian (who described it as a “a make-or-break test for [the Labour Government’s] housing revolution”, see here)

Barristers at Francis Taylor Building acted for Swale Borough Council, which resisted both schemes as local planning authority. They also represented National Highways, as consultee for the strategic road network.

The inquiry brought into sharp relief many of the central questions of contemporary planning: how the Government's pledge to build 1.5 million homes is to be reconciled with the protections afforded to planning assets, like the Kent Downs National Landscape (which has the highest level of protection in relation to landscape); the ancient woodland (an irreplaceable natural resource) and heritage assets and conservation areas (which have been singled out for particular protection in the planning process). It also tested the proper boundary between plan-making and development control when change on this scale is proposed.

Commenting on the case, Michael Rhimes “A case like this is planning law in miniature and at full scale at once. We were debating the broadest aspirations at regional level, to the details of impacts on particular heritage assets. Every issue we care about in planning— landscape, heritage, the future of how this country builds — was alive in that room, day after day. It really was the cutting-edge of planning in the 21st century"

The inspector's report and the Secretary of State's decision are now awaited.

Work of this kind has long defined the planning practice at Francis Taylor Building, and is part of what awaits those who join the set.