Underriver · Mill Lane
A planning application would let the barns at Great Hollanden Farm be used for storage and distribution, with the lorries that go with it, on lanes where two cars cannot always pass.
Application 26/00899/FUL · Sevenoaks District Council
Objections go to Sevenoaks District Council through their planning portal. It takes five minutes, and a comment in your own words counts for far more than another copy of the same text.
A comment in your own words counts for more than another copy of the same text. If you have already sent a template letter, you are not barred from writing again in your own words.
Permission for the building to become either Class B8, the warehousing class, meaning storage and distribution with the lorries, loading and deliveries that go with it, or light industrial use within Class E, the class that since 2020 also covers shops, cafés, offices, gyms, clinics and nurseries.
Nothing pins it down. No hours of work are proposed, so deliveries and reversing could start at six on a Sunday morning, and no limit is set on lorry numbers.
It is one building taken in slices. Two other parts of the same barn were signed off in May 2025, on the same drawing with a different portion outlined. Each is judged on its own, so nobody has ever assessed the whole of it.
On lanes that cannot take them, already signed "unsuitable for HGVs". Kent Highways has lodged a holding objection pending further information, and assessed this part of the site alone.
A dozen horses cross the lane twice a day at a blind bend. The school bus stops on request. Walkers and cyclists have nowhere to go, and photographs show cars driven onto the verge to let lorries past.
The council's own environmental health officer has found the noise impact unacceptable. That assumed set working hours which the application does not actually impose.
Fumes and idling on a lane people walk along daily. The application form answers "unknown" for foul drainage, beside a stream that floods, and Southern Water have said the information is insufficient.
If permission is granted, it may be possible to change later to one of the other Class E uses, a shop, a gym, a clinic or a nursery, without any further permission being required.
More than 200 people have objected and nobody has written in support. Hildenborough and Seal Parish Councils both object, and so does the medical practice at the business centre next door.
The BBC reported on the application on 18 September, under the headline Villagers' traffic fears over farm development plan. It quotes residents on the state of the lanes, reports Hildenborough Parish Council's estimate of over 100 vehicle movements a day, and notes that if Bank Lane and Mill Lane were closed, traffic would be pushed onto Ridings Lane and Vines Lane instead.
The estate's response
The Fairlawne Estate told the BBC that the plans would “not turn farmland into a lorry park for HGVs and articulated vehicles”, that this is a “redundant farm building” next to a business centre, and that there is parking for ten vehicles, eight cars and two vans.
That describes this one application. It does not describe the site. Here is what the estate's own drawings say.
“Not a lorry park for HGVs and articulated vehicles.”
The drawing for the adjoining unit, approved in May 2025, provides for exactly that. It marks ground to be cleared and made good “for a HGV / articulated vehicle turning circle”, and its schedule lists “2 No incidental HGV parking bays”. Same estate, same barn, same lane.
“Parking for ten vehicles, eight cars and two vans.”
That is this slice alone. The adjoining unit has twenty spaces of its own. The drawing for this one also states that the access is “out only for LGVs & cars & in and out for HGVs”, so heavy goods vehicles are provided for in the application itself.
“A redundant farm building.”
The permission sought is not a modest one. It asks for Class B8, the warehousing class, meaning storage and distribution, or a use within Class E. No hours of work are proposed and no limit is set on lorry numbers.
None of this suggests anyone has said anything untrue. It is simply that the three parts of this barn have been dealt with one at a time, and a description of one part is not a description of what the whole would become. That is the objection.
Planning officers may only weigh certain matters. Letters resting on the wrong ones are discounted, however strongly felt.
Use the council's Noise App. Every report is logged and dated by the council, so it becomes their record rather than ours. It runs separately from the planning application and continues whatever happens to it. Search the council's website for "Report noise nuisance using the Noise App".
Vehicles unable to pass, cars driven onto the verge, walkers and riders with nowhere to go. Note the date, time and place. Dated photographs of a near miss are worth more than a general complaint.
Ask them, by name and by date, to have the application heard by the Development Management Committee on 15 October.