Save The Blean!
The Blean is an area of ancient woodlands, farmland, heritage sites, the Sarre Penn Valley and the villages of Tyler Hill, Blean and Rough Common sited to the north of Canterbury. The area the council wants to develop is Grade 2 & 3 ‘best and most versatile’ farmland immediately next to multiple conservation areas, heritage buildings and scheduled monuments.
Last Saturday more than 150 residents of Blean, Rough Common and Tyler Hill—along with many from Whitstable and Canterbury—took part in Walk The Blean. This was both a protest and a poignant walk through the area where the proposed development of 2,000 houses could destroy a precious natural resource forever. A huge thank you to everyone who supported the event and showed the strength of your concern about this, either by joining us or by getting in touch to ask how you can help.
It is so deeply disappointing that this proposed development—in an area of significant local and national importance—has been put forward by the University of Kent, the custodians of the land. The University has always positioned itself very publicly as a champion of the local environment. Its publicity and social media materials consistently celebrate the privileged position that was gifted to it 70 years ago, when it was built among green fields and woodlands on the site of a former farm.
So what is perplexing is the gap between the way in which the University presents itself and what it now intends to do.
It proclaims its commitment to local, national and international environmental and social concerns, citing ongoing research and innovation initiatives that explore the impact of climate change on wildlife and communities. The University website consistently pictures the institution nestled amongst trees and fields, above a view of our ancient cathedral. The pioneering Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology, celebrated for its work on community and environmental issues, is promoted with a photograph of precisely the habitat that the proposed development will destroy.
For if it goes ahead, the University will actually be placed at the edge of a new settlement of 2,000 houses, amalgamated into a suburban sprawl that erases the spaces between three distinct villages and creates a built up area substantially larger than the medieval city that it overlooks.
It is equally confusing that the University is pressing for a development that would build on quality agricultural land, while simultaneously declaring itself a committed advocate for local food production ‘contributing to tackling the climate emergency through sustainable solutions to food and energy needs’. The University reminds us that ‘Kent is known as the Garden of England, with outstanding agricultural produce and acres of land dedicated to food production’, and declares that ‘We are at the heart of developments to strengthen Kent as the leading region for the production and processing of high-value foods’. Meanwhile it looks at destroying more than 100 hectares of productive fields, and kicking two tenant farmers off the land.
The University has presumably spent thousands of pounds, perhaps more, to engage the agents Avison Young, who are helping them to create what is assessed by the council as a ‘large-scale car-dependent’ development (December 2023 Sustainability Appraisal of SLAA319 Land north of University of Kent). The University has also been happy for their agents to push the idea, in evidence to the council planners, that this development is necessary because there is ‘an unignorable economic need… to ensure the future success of the University’. (Evidence to the December 2023 Sustainability Appraisal of SLAA319 Land north of University of Kent).
And this, of course, is why we are where we are. Like many similar higher education institutions, the University is in debt and is looking to its assets for a quick fix. Never mind that their most recent accounts state their 2030 strategy ‘returns the University to a surplus performance by 2024/25 and to a sustainable operating position by 2027/28‘—this land development looks like a money-spinner if they can make it happen.
And the communities that will be directly affected by this have been completely unaware and uninformed about what was being planned. There was a time when the University was appreciated by its neighbours as a trusted caretaker of the beautiful and delicate environment that it inhabits. But no longer. The University’s Community magazine, which was ‘designed to keep local residents, businesses and community representatives up to date with the latest news and developments from the University of Kent’ appears to have been in abeyance for some time. There has been no communication. The first that residents knew of this development was with the publication of the draft Local Plan.
Change can be a positive thing, of course, and very welcome when it brings clear benefits and new opportunities, and is brought about in collaboration. But this development will bring little of positive value to the landscape, the local wildlife, or the communities that it will alter forever.
The University will alleviate its financial pressures for a while. The developers will make a great deal of money and move on. But what will be lost forever will be beyond price: a proven haven for wildlife, some of it vanishingly rare, destroyed; three distinct and lively village communities absorbed into a suburb; and the obliteration of a resource that for thousands of past and present residents, students, staff and visitors, has been part of the experience and the magic of this precious area of Kent and of the University itself.
Save The Blean is an action group made up of local residents, students, conservationists, farmers and members of the Canterbury community. We are non party-political and separate from the local Parish Councils.
Links to our website: www.savetheblean.org
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1131073134585951
Email address: info@savetheblean.org
Consultation – How to Respond: https://www.savetheblean.org/consultation/
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Whitstable Views 
Is it worth trying a crowd funded approach to buy off the land?
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