Newspaper Stories 1970-1979 - Hartley-Kent: The Website for Hartley

A Hartley man, who claimed he could see workmen using a toilet on a building site when he looked out of his kitchen window, asked for a reduction in the rateable value of his home, at Kent Local Valuation Court at White Oak, Swanley, last Thursday.

[NAME REDACTED] of Wild Barfield, Merton Avenue, claimed that there was high density development in the vicinity of his bungalow, which had sprung up since 1968.  [NAME] who said he had occupied his bungalow since 1961, claimed that the area in which he lived wa no longer rural in the strictest sense of the word because of the development.

He alleged that the road in which he lived, which is not made up, was awash with mud and water, particularly since contractor's lorries were using the road.

[NAME] also said it was impossible to walk along the road from May to September withotu wearing rubber boots.

Speaking about the development of 36 flats at the rear of his property, [NAME] quoted from an environment inspector's report which stated that the development would be of old people's bungalows.

He said Dartford Rural Council had obviously changed their mind after getting the planning permission.

[NAME] also complained that sheds which had been erected in 1968 for workmen were very unsightly and still had not been taken down.

Mr I E Salway, Deputy Valuation Officer, agreed that the development at the rear of [NAME] property had a higher density than elsewhere in Hartley.

The panel agreed to a reduction of £5.

Objectors to a proposed development at Hartley were told last week that the building of 48 executive type homes in the village would help a local builder to continue his business and provide houses for people without them.

Thy were listening to a two day public enquiry into an appeal by Mr R J Billings against Dartford Rural District Council' refusal to grant planning permission for land at the rear of Old owns and Ash Road, Hartley.

Mr John Newey QC, representing Mr Billings, stated that the 8 acre site which his client owned was not part good agricultural land, but part of it had been cultivated.  Mr Billings was also a farmer, he said.

"Mr Billings used to build about 150 houses a year, but the position at this moment is that in the whole of Kent he has only 20 sites for 20 houses"  Mr Newey told the inspector, Mr R Le B Shelton.

"That is a very stark and real problem if he is to continue his business," he added.

The council's main objection to development was that part of site was within an area being considered for inclusion in the Metropolitan Green Belt.

Mr James Milburn, for the council, said that only about 1 acre of the site was actually within an area designated for residential development on the Kent Development Plan.

He maintained that there wre 2,000 private homes due to be built at New Ash Green and Swanley, and these would meet the demand in the rural area.

Much of the evidence and cross examination was concerned with possible aggravation of crowded commuter trains from the Hartley Longfield area.

At the start of the enquiry about 30 members of the public were present.

Mr Newey said it was not intended to have a greater density than 8 houses to the acre on the site.  They would be for professional, managerial or executive people.

And it would be wrong, he held, to suppose that the people who bought them would necessarily work in central London.

Mr John Porter, of Porter and Cobb, estate agents, told the inquiry that although the houses would be more expensive than some in the area, he had no doubt they would sell without any difficulty.

He added that the cost of plots of land in the area at present was 'fantastic'.

Mr R T Byrom, senior planning assistant of the Rural District Council, referred to other appeals in the area which had been dismissed.

One of these, rejected by the Minister in 1965, also an application by Mr Billings, concerned an area of 89 acres, which included the current appeal site.

"The appeal site is countryside and by remaining in agricultural use as a barrier against the spread of development westward into the Fawkham Valley it lays an essential part to protecting this countryside and preventing the merging of Hartley with the village of Fawkham", said Mr Byrom.

Mr Philip Bradsaw, a principal assistant wit Kent Couty Council's Roads Department, told the inquiry that residentail development of the appeal site would be likely to cause hazards to road safety mainly because of restricted access onto the Ash Road.

He was questioned at length by Mr Newey, who did not agree with his estimate that the development could produce an additional 500 'vehicle movements' in the area.

The inspector said that he had received 22 letters from local residents who objected to the development.

40 Hartley people were represented by counsel, Mr Brian Pryor, who said "In my view this appeal has not shown that there is any local need for this development."

"It would provide additional pressure on local facilities which are already suffering from excessive use", he told the Inspector.

Among local residents to give evidence was [NAME 1], an electrical engineer and training officer of Ash Road, who concluded, "I oppose any further expansion whatever in the village."

[NAME 2] of Fairby Lane, who travels to London by train each day, spoke of the "intolerable situation" which would exist on the railway if any more building was allowed.

Mr K Willis, of Old Downs, Hartley, told the inspector tht even bearing in mind that the Government were proposing local authorities in the Home Counties to consider the generous release of land, he would still be against the development.

Headmaster of Hartley Primary School, Mr David Connick, referring to the situation at his school, said that every week this term a new child had been admitted to the school from families who had just moved to Hartley.

In his summing up, Mr Milburn referrred to the Government's go-ahead decision for New Ash Green in 1964.

He quoted Mr Richard Crossman, who said that permission did not represent an agbandonment of the Green Belt policy and was preferable to "dribs and drabs" and infilling devlopment.  The appeal site was the ort of thing that this remark had in mind, claimed Mr Milburn.

Concluding his case, Mr Newey outlined 8 points in favour of the development, which included the great demand for housing, the shortage of building land, te fact that Hartley was not included in the Green Belt in the 1950s, the small agricultural value of the land, and the urging of local authorities by the government for the release of more land.

The inspector made two visits to the site and will make his recommendations to the Environment minister.

A 13th century medieval village found in a Hartley wood - the subject of 3 years' work by Fawkham Archaeological Society - will be bisected and partially lost when a new link road crosses the site.

Before the bulldozers move in on Chapel Wood, where the village, known as Scotgrove, covers 5 acres of cleared scrubland, the society have launched a rescue operation.

At Easter they started excavation and examination of one building, thought to be a chapel with surrounding boundary walls, which will typify the village.

"We shall save what we can", say s the society's leader, Mr Roger Walsh, a surveyor who is a keen archaeologist.

Mr Walsh feels that while they deplore the loss of remains, the society are not dedicated to conservation and must accept the need for new roads.

He sees Scotgrove as just part of the pattern of rmains uner threat in the new Kent Road Plan.  The society have launched emergency rescue plans.

Forming theselves into a corsortium with other neighbouring societies they are walking the lengths of the proposed roads and looking for signs of archaeological interest.

"I would bet that there is not less than a dozen sites of value on the route of proposed M20 between Wrotham and Swanley", he claims.

These could be Romano-British, medieval or from other periods.

"If we find something of outstanding value, we would fight to get the road rerouted," he says.

The society do not plan to fight over Scotgrove.

Although, says Mr Walsh, "It has not been too tampered with, and is of value."

It woudl have been a village in 1250, and evidence of flint walls, as well as those of the usual daub and wattle have been discovered.  Mounds, hillocks and ditches mark the spot.

The new road will carry traffic from New Ash Green (the Royal Oak West Ash) to link with Valley Road.

The village Sisters of Mery have been part of the life of Hartley since the war.  Two generation sof children learned from them and grew under their care at St Joseph's Convent School.  But after some 35 years, the nuns are no longer a familiar sight in the village.

The school thy opened in 1942 with 30 people had grown ito such as size that the parish was entitled to a new grant aided Roman Catholic primary School.  It opened in September 1976 - and te five sister who stayed on in the convent returned to Gravesend last October when the building was sold.

The story of how 7 nuns, evacuated from Alderney when the Germans invaded the Channel Islands in 1940, became a much loved Hartley institution, is a strange one.

In fact, St Joseph's Hartley might nvever have been if the Sisters had not spotted an advertisement in the Catholic newspaper "The Universe" one day in 1942.

They had spent 2 years in convents in Bournemouth, Burnley, Leeds and Oldham after leaving their own convent and school at Alderney.

Both buildings were occupied by the Germans and there was no prospect of returning there.  So the sisters were looking for some work to do - and then they saw the advertisement.

It appealed for a community of sisters to consider opening a school in 'a remote country village n Kent', which Hartley was in 1942.

The advertisement had been placed by Miss Beatrice Davies-Cook, a lady who did much to establish the Roman Catholic parish in Hartley.

She owned a building which had once been used as the village school and she was willing to loan it any group of Sisters who would open a school in Hartley.

This work seems just right for the exiled nuns, but there was protocol to observe before they could go ahead.

First the sisters had to obtain permission to work in another diocese from the Archbishop of Portsmouth.  He gave his consent - but only on condition that the sisters returned to their own convent and school in Alderney when they could, and resume their work there.

Then, another Archbishop had to be consulted, this time the Archbishop of Southwark, under whose authority Hartley was.  He too gave his blessing to the project, but aske that the sisers seek amalgamation with another community in his diocese.

At last the nuns were free to open the school but there were plenty of problems to face.

First, they had no accommodation - but the Gravesend Sisters of Mercy soon solved that problem.  There was no furniture or equipment at all in Hartley, and the nuns had to appeal to other convents and friends for help.

According to Mother Francis Lennon, the last Sister-in-charge at Hartley, the response was "just wonderful".

"The Sisters also received much support and encouragement from the Carmelite Fathers and the parishioners in Hartley", she said.

At last the school was open and functioning, with a first intake of 30 pupils.  Sister Camillus, now aged 89 , was the first headmistress.

Over the next few years it went from strength to strength - then in 1946 came te news that their property in Alderney was empty once more.  Under the terms of their promise to their own archbishop, the nuns were bound to return.