Tonbridge Town Centre redevelopment
Last week, Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council published documents prepared by consultants about how the land to the east of the High Street could be redeveloped. These documents can be found following the link here.
The land in question is the property owned by council roughly from Angel Lane to the west, the Botany Stream to the north, Avenue Du Puy to east and Vale Road to the south. It does include the Angel Centre but does include not the Sainsbury’s / Beales building.
(Separately, Sainsbury’s have just published proposals for redeveloping their property. There doesn’t appear to be coordination between their plans and those of TMBC, despite the coincidence of timing. These proposals can be found here, and in store.)
Ahead of a meeting of councillors to discuss these early-stage ideas, the Civic Society circulated a high-level response to councillors. We wanted to indicate our support for the development as an idea but also to flag some concerns and possible issues.
The bulk of this council meeting can be watched on this YouTube link here.
Some brief highlights -
The redevelopment process is at an early stage. Very little has been decided.
It has been agreed that a ‘Programme Board’ should be established comprising a number of councillors from across the party spectrum to get a grip on the process.
The future of the Angel Centre is subject to a separate review by consultants, who are due to report back around June.
Following that report, there will be some kind of public consultation about all aspects of the development, which we would hope will be relatively broad.
It is recognized that parking is a critical issue for many residents.
Warders Medical Centre has been looking for a new, larger site for some years and are keen to be involved in the new development.
If you can, please do take a look through the documents and send us any feedback to info@tonbridgecivicsociety.org.uk
There’ll obviously be a lot more to say about this through the consultation process, and we hope to do so via the newsletter, the website and potentially in upcoming meetings.
Sainsbury’s ‘Before & After’ site plan image (Credit: Sainsbury’s)