A housing developer says his company is being unfairly treated by a council's planning department after he built more flats than was permitted.

Windmill Construction Ltd was served with an enforcement notice after it put up a block of nine flats in Ingram Road, Gillingham.

But the Higham-based company's director Paul Giles says he is unhappy with Medway Council's grounds for serving the notice and says he was attempting to maximise the site's potential.

During a planning committee meeting at the end of June, councillors turned down the company's retrospective plans for four extra flats.

Councillors and planning officers argued upping the number of flats in block B of the development from a previously-agreed five to nine would cause issues with parking possibly overspilling onto the street and would also impinge on neighbours' privacy.

In 2019, permission had been granted for a development of 22 flats across two blocks with seven in block B, but it was later agreed to reduce this to five. A second block on the site, which is now council-owned, has 17 flats.

Mr Giles says after applying for the permission in May last year, he waited more than a year for a decision to be made, which he complained about. He says adding the extra flats would have been the best use of the brownfield site and argued they were built within the agreed parameters of the permission already granted for seven, then five flats.

'They've scared people into thinking they're going to have their building knocked down around them...'

He also says it was his intention to maximise the amount of people who could live there by getting rid of plans for an indoor gym and plant room to allow for more accommodation.

He said: "Of the nine units, I have retained in my land ownership eight parking spaces, so I have a 90% ratio.

"Medway housing have bought the front block, block A, which has 17 apartments with 12 spaces, so they've got a 70% ratio, a much lower ratio than me. Yet I am the one having enforcement for parking.

"To be fair, I have four extra units, but they are saying for those four extra units, there isn't enough parking on site, well I own eight spaces for nine units."

Mr Giles also argues the enforcement notice handed to him includes land which is actually owned by the council and has asked why the authority has not conferred the notice on to itself.

He added: "They chose to serve an enforcement notice on me and all the occupants, yet five of them have planning consent.

"About four people have since moved out saying that their building is going to be knocked down which is the ultimate effect of planning enforcement.

"They've scared people into thinking they're going to have their building knocked down around them."

Speaking about the recent council house developments at Eastcourt Green and Sturry Way Park in nearby Twdyall, he said: "They are sectioning off parts of the local parks and putting houses on them, but I've got a brownfield site and I've put four extra units in there.

"I have demonstrated with two consultants that there is adequate parking both on and off site."

The company has appealed the refusal of planning permission and made another appeal against the enforcement notice but Mr Giles does not expect to hear back on these for at least eight months.

Had it not appealed, the enforcement notice would have come into effect and would have required it to either demolish the building or make the necessary changes to comply with the planning permission for the five flats.

A residents' meeting was held in July where people living in neighbouring Gillingham Green were able to ask questions about the development to the council's head of planning Dave Harris.

Whilst the council did not comment on the refusal grounds with concerns to the parking allocation for either block, nor the area in which the enforcement notice covers, Mr Harris said in a statement: “When we became aware that the developer was not building in accordance with the approved plans we visited the site and a retrospective planning application was subsequently submitted.

"We attempted to work with Windmill Construction to find a solution, however an agreement could not be reached and the application was refused by the planning committee on June 23 2021 and an enforcement notice was served.

"An appeal has been submitted regarding the planning refusal and the enforcement notice and the matter will now be considered by the Planning Inspectorate.”

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