These comments have dispelled a myth that has been circulating within parts of the village: that a ‘majority’ of the village favour new housing development either on the Brickfields or to the north of Conyngham Lane between the village and Mountfield. On the contrary, it is now clear that the expressed opinion is strongly against new building, and that villagers are keen for the remaining Green Gap between the village and south Canterbury to be preserved.

This is good news – and here we can dispel a second myth, namely that if the Neighbourhood Plan Committee does not allocate sites for housing then Canterbury City Council will do this – and this may be on sites that the village does not want. We can understand where this view comes from: this is indeed the case when a city council makes clear that it intends to build houses within a particular neighbourhood.

Fortunately, however, Canterbury City Council is not looking to Bridge for housing sites. The village should welcome this, and not look this gift horse in the mouth. As we reported earlier, Bridge has escaped allocation in the city council’s local plan, the council wish to maintain the Green Gap between the village and Canterbury, and the Green Gap has the support of the government-appointed housing inspector.

Where does this leave us? We call upon the Neighbourhood Plan Committee to strike from the plan all housing allocations in the village. Canterbury City Council does not expect this from us, the government-appointed housing inspector does not support this, and the village does not want it.

This week’s decision by the Bridge Neighbourhood Planning Group to support housing developments on the Brickfields and to the north of Conyngham Lane in the neighbourhood plan was an unwelcome start to the New Year.

The decision flies in the face of advice from a number of quarters: when the Mountfield development was approved last month there was an agreement to maintain open space “in perpetuity”. And the government-appointed inspector confirmed the Green Gap to the south of Canterbury – while regrettably striking out that to the north (Mountfield: The good, the bad and the ugly ). Furthermore, an independent report  on the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan received before the meeting “strongly recommended” that Bridge Parish Council leave housing site allocations to the city council. And at present Canterbury City Council are not recommending any new housing for Bridge.

The Bridge Neighbourhood Planning Group gave no reason for this week’s decision, which leaves Bridge at serious risk of coalition with south Canterbury. There is no need to build either to the north of Conyngham Lane or on the Brickfields, both of which will erode our Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and extend the village envelope.

The same month (December 2016) that Canterbury City Council voted to approve Mountfield the Sunday Times reported that Inkberrow – the rural Worcestershire village that is the model for Ambridge, the fictional home to BBC Radio’s ‘The Archers’ – could be reclassified as a small town after developers won the right to convert a greenfield site on the outskirts of the village.

This is not just an amusing anecdote. The Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) has backed up research by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that 1,300 villages vanished under urban sprawl between 2001 and 2011. The head of planning at CPRE, Matt Thomson, was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying that the planning system is “tilted” in favour of urban developers, “guaranteeing that many more villages will be swallowed up.”

Could Bridge suffer the fate of Inkberrow and become a town? As things stand that could well be the best we can hope for. If building to the north of Conyngham Lane is approved, and when Mountfield is completed, Bridge will effectively be a suburb of Canterbury.

Read CPRE’s Green Belt Under Siege report which warns of the threat that urban development poses to green belts and village life.