Committee:-

Chairman: Dr Peter Blandon

Description:-

Swale district contains some of the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), as well as much of north Kent’s now-scarce coastal countryside. While the borough is crossed by the M2/A2 and features the towns of Sittingbourne and Faversham, much of it is profoundly rural, especially on the Isle of Sheppey and to the south of Faversham.  The eastern part of the district is in the Thames Gateway growth area, and is therefore under particularly heavy pressure to accommodate large volumes of new housing.

Hot issues:-

• Traffic around Sittingbourne is a major problem and Swale Borough Council are pushing for a major new round around the east of the town that would connect the A249 from Sheppey to the A2 and then down to a new junction on the M2, near the Kent Science Park. Some of the route has already been built but the remainder the northern relief road would blight the villages between Sittingbourne and Faversham. A southern relief road down the M2 would rip through beautiful, fertile orchards around Rodmersham and Bredgar.
• The expansion of Kent Science Park is also problematic as it would ruin the surrounding countryside.