NO KIDDING Kids BANNED from living on ‘UK’s strictest estate’ after locals slam ‘gulag camp’ & no cats rule – but hail cheap homes

PLANS for a set of retirement bungalows have been approved - with a bizarre rule that no children or cats are allowed to live there.

Medway Council last week approved plans for View Road, Cliffe Woods in Kent, with the requirement that residents are banned from keeping pet cats, and no one under 16 can live on-site.

(The site where 25 houses are proposed on Cliffe Woods, Kent.Credit: Esquire Developments/ Medway Council planning portal)

(The land near on the edge of Cliffe Woods is close to the Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill site of special scientific interest)

The conditions were tied to a planning application for 25 homes for people aged over 55, based in a remote part of northern Kent near a protected wildlife site, KentOnline reports.

The exclusion clause for cats was due to the site being close to the Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill site of special scientific interest (SSSI), where nightingale birds nest.

The condition of no-one under 16 being allowed to live there is to dissuade regular home-buyers at the development, which is intended for the elderly. The site has in the past been the topic of some debate.

In 2017 a planning committee refused plans for 50 retirement home - but these were later approved on appeal by the Planning Inspectorate.

Those plans were never enacted.

A later design by Chelmsford-based Stonechart Developments Ltd. for 50 retirement homes - which was compared to a "1950s eastern European gulag camp" by one councillor - was greenlit in 2022.

They will consist of 13 two-bed bungalows, along with eight three-bed chalet bungalows and four three-bed houses.

The site is next to another development for 68 homes.

(Designs for a previous application were compared to a gulag camp.Credit: Ubique Architects)

(An architect's impression for previous plans of how the homes could lookCredit: Ubique Architects)

“Older people tend to have pets as company, it’s going to be interesting how the proposal is to deal with that.”

Cllr Dan McDonald said: “You could possibly have young people, either because older people have adopted or fostered, or end up with their grandchildren - there is nothing to stop bringing young children into the home.”

Planning officers said it was not unusual to have a ban for under-16s at retirement accommodation and all would-be buyers will be informeed of the rule when considering homes there.

After news of the site's approval - and rules of no cats or children living there - was revealed, locals took to Facebook to lambast the idea.

Vicky Kimber joked: "No reason cats can’t live there if they are given access to a catio."

Another commenter wrote: "I can understand no kids but not the cats."

  Ref: NO KIDDING Kids BANNED from living on ‘UK’s strictest estate’ after locals slam ‘gulag camp’ & no cats rule – but hail cheap homes (thesun)

Photo Credit- Esquire Developments/ Medway Council planning portal, The Sun, Ubique Architects