MAIDSTONE MEDICAL CAMPUS LTD LAND AT NEWNHAM PARK, MAIDSTONE Land at Environmental Statement: Non-Technical Summary
Introduction Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd is applying to Maidstone Borough Council for outline planning permission for a medical campus on land at Newnham Park, Maidstone, Kent. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been carried out as part of the planning process to identify the potential environmental effects of the scheme. The results of this assessment are reported in the Environmental Statement and are summarised in this Non-Technical Summary. The EIA has been undertaken following consultation with Maidstone Borough Council and organisations including Kent County Council, the Environment Agency and Natural England. It follows a scope agreed with Maidstone Borough Council. What issues have been assessed? The following issues have been assessed within the Environmental Statement and have been summarised within this document: Socio-Economics Ecology Transport Noise and Vibration Drainage & Flood Risk Air Quality Landscape & Visual Effects Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Cumulative Effects For each issue the assessors have considered the likely positive and negative environmental effects of the proposed development, during the construction process and once the development is operational. Map showing the general location of the Maidstone Medical Campus Where effects have been identified, mitigation measures have been proposed to avoid, limit or offset any negative impacts. DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 2
ES Non-Technical Summary : Maidstone Medical Campus The Proposal Site The Site is currently former agricultural land immediately to the east of the existing Newnham Court Shopping Village, to the south-east of M20 Junction 7 on the northern edge of Maidstone. It is immediately to the south of the Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery (KIMS) which is currently being built and is due to open in 2014. This section describes the site in further detail. Where is the site? The 18.7 hectare Site is former farmland belonging to Newnham Court Farm, to the north of Bearsted Road and to the east of the Newnham Court Shopping Village. To the north and east is a substantial block of woodland, to the north of which is the M20 motorway. A row of cottages (Gidds Pond Cottages) and a smaller block of woodland front Bearsted Road to the south, whilst a further detached dwelling lies to the rear within the Site, served by a private drive off Bearsted Road. SITE client MAIDSTONE MEDICAL C project MAIDSTONE MEDICA title SITE LOCATION drwg Newnham Court Farm has not been in active farming use for several years, with the land now formed mainly by short-mown grassland. There is a small stream running through the centre of the Site. rev FIGURE 3.2 Eclipse House, Eclipse Park, Sittingbour Maidstone, Kent ME14 3EN t: 01622 776226 f: 0 e: info@dhaenvironment.co.uk w: No reproduction by any method of any pa is permitted without the consent of the co Produced for Town and Country Planning Plan showing the site and surrounding area What is the character of the surrounding area? Park & Ride KIMS Horish Wood Eclipse Park Pumping Station Newnham Court Shopping Village The Site is on the northern edge of Maidstone, with the area to the north of the motorway having a rural character. The area to the west and south is more urban, including a business park (Eclipse Park), the Newnham Court Shopping Village (which includes a garden centre, several shops, cafes and a public house amongst other things) and the Grove Green and Vinters Park residential areas. client MAIDSTONE MEDICAL CAMPUS LTD project Vinters Park Pope s Wood Crematorium MAIDSTONE MEDICAL CAMPUS Immediately to the north of the Site is the Kent Institute for Medicine and Surgery (KIMS), which is described further on the next page. title AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH Vinters Valley Nature Reserve drwg rev scale FIGURE 3.3 TV Studios NTS date MARCH 2013 Grove Green Eclipse House, Eclipse Park, Sittingbourne Road Maidstone, Kent ME14 3EN t: 01622 776226 f: 01622 776227 e: info@dhaenvironment.co.uk w: www.dhaenvironment.co.uk No reproduction by any method of any part of this document is permitted without the consent of the copyright holders. Produced for Town and Country Planning purposes only. An aerial view of the Site and surrounding area DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 3
KIMS The Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery (KIMS) is a specialist hospital which is currently being built and is due to open in early 2014. It will provide advanced medical facilities for treatments such as cancer management and heart surgery. Whilst it will be a privately funded and operated hospital, it will treat NHS patients as well as private patients. KIMS will include several buildings ranging from two to four storeys in height. How will the Site be accessed? The Site will be accessed from Bearsted Road, using the newly enlarged roundabout at the junction with New Cut Road. This is the access point which has recently been created to provide access to KIMS. Above: KIMS and its access road under construction in April 2013 Below: An artist s impression of the finished KIMS hospital Planning Policy Allocation The Site has been allocated for a medical campus in the draft version of Maidstone Borough Council s Local Plan. DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 4
The Proposed Scheme Outline planning permission is being sought for a series of buildings to form a medical campus. Detailed permission is only being sought for access to the Site at this stage, with access being gained from the existing KIMS roundabout and access road. If outline permission is granted, a future reserved matters application will need to be made for approval of details of the layout, appearance, scale and landscaping. A fuller description can be found in Chapter 4 of the Environmental Statement. What uses are proposed in the medical campus? The medical campus will include up to 98,000 m 2 of buildings together with a further 116 residential units forming part of a neuro-rehabilitation village (described further below). Uses within the medical campus could include some or all of the following: additional hospital facilities (such as a women s and children s hospital), clinics, consultation rooms, rehabilitation facilities; university-level education and training facilities, including student accommodation; keyworker housing for doctors and nurses; pathology laboratories; business uses such as offices and research and development facilities; a limited number of small facilities such as shops and restaurants to serve staff and residents of the development; a neuro-rehabilitation village; internal roads and car parking, including off-road parking facilities for residents of Gidds Pond Cottages; hard and soft landscaping, including creation of around 3 hectares of woodland Development zones within the Proposed Development DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 5
What is a neurorehabilitation village? An indication of how the medical campus could be laid out This would be a series of buildings providing specialist rehabilitation services and accommodation for people with Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia and traumatic brain injuries. Specialist accommodation would be designed for people who can no longer cope with entirely independent living and require medical assistance close by. This would not just be a standard retirement home, not only because the facilities are designed to provide a higher level of medical care, but also because they are designed to accommodate other family members, allowing patients to continue to live with their partners How high would the buildings be? The precise height of individual buildings would be considered at the reserved matters stage, but the current application sets maximum heights for different areas of the Site. Buildings would vary between 2 and 4.5 storeys, depending on their situation within the Site. DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 6
Who could use the woodland? Whilst the Applicant is happy to provide public access to this woodland, if this was considered acceptable to the local authority, some responses received at the public exhibition held to gain initial public views on the Proposed Development indicated that they would prefer limited or no public access to this part of the Site for ecological reasons. Whether or not wider public access is allowed, the woodland area may also provide recreational benefits to residents of the neurorehabilitation village, for example. A management plan would be secured by condition or s106 legal agreement which, amongst other things, would set out the extent to which public access would be provided. How would the SIte be accessed? Vehicle access to the Site is to be from the New Cut Roundabout, via the new fourth junction arm recently installed as part of the KIMS development. A series of other internal roads would serve the individual development plots. Car parking provision of 1,200 spaces is proposed. Will any works be required to the wider road network? The recent KIMS road improvements will be sufficient to serve the first stages of development, but some changes will be required when the development is around 75% complete. In particular: The New Cut roundabout would be further enlarged to provide additional capacity; The Bearsted Road/ A249 roundabout would be signalised; and M20 Junction 7 would be partsignalised and alterations made to various aspects of the roundabout. Artist s impression of the doctors and nurses accommodation What about people without a car? Bus service improvements are proposed, either in the form of a new bus service or extension of an existing one, such as the 506 Park and Ride service. Evening and weekend services would be proposed as well as daytime services. Pedestrian and cycle improvements are also proposed in the local area, to make access to the Site easier for people wanting to walk or cycle. Will the development be sustainable? Buildings will be designed to meet high sustainability standards DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 7
Have alternatives been considered? The medical campus has strong links to the KIMS hospital which opens in 2014. It needs to be located close to KIMS as the new hospital will effectively form the first phase of the wider medical campus. The concept of a medical campus could not be fully realised on an alternative site away from KIMS. The site layout has not been fixed as outline permission is sought at this stage, with details of siting to be approved at a later stage. Artist s impression of the site entrance The existing site is former farmland which is no longer used for agricultural purposes. The limited size of the fields and their lack of connection to other agricultural land means they are of limited use for agriculture. including BREEAM Very Good for the non-residential buildings and Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4 for residential buildings. Renewable energy and green roofs will be used where possible. A sustainable drainage scheme will be provided, including swales and ponds. When will the scheme be built? The medical campus would be a long-term development with different plots being developed as and when detailed proposals come forward for each. It is expected that the development will be complete by 2023. Construction work would not normally take place in evenings, Saturday afternoons, Sundays or Bank Holidays. DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 8
Impacts Assessed The EIA has assessed a range of potential environmental effects in accordance with a Scoping Opinion agreed with Maidstone Borough Council. The findings of the assessment are summarised below. Further information on any of these topics can be found in the Environmental Statement: Main Report submitted with the planning application. Socio-Economic The construction process will have moderate beneficial effects by creating employment opportunities for local people. There will also be minor beneficial knock-on effects as a result of supply chain benefits. Training as a result of the construction process will have minor beneficial effects and there will also be minor beneficial effects from money spent in the local area by construction workers. The development will lead to an increased population, mainly in the form of students and workers living on site. Specialist housing would be provided in the form of student and doctors / nurses accommodation and specialist care accommodation for people with neurological conditions, which would have moderate beneficial effects in terms of housing provision due to the specialist nature. There will be moderate to major beneficial effects on the local economy, as a result of 3,800 jobs being created and the 350 million investment in the Borough, which will indirectly create additional jobs. A wide range of further specialist medical services are proposed, which would have major beneficial healthcare effects. The proposed university facilities would have moderate to major beneficial effects for education provision. Ecology The nearest statutory protected sites are the North Downs Woodlands Special Area of Conservation, 1.8km north-east of the Site, the Wouldham to Detling Escarpment SSSI, 1.9km north-east of the Site, and the Vinters Valley Local Nature Reserve, to the south of Bearsted Road. No significant impacts are predicted to these areas. The woodland to the north and east of the site is designated as a Local Wildlife Site. There are areas of ancient woodland immediately adjacent to the Site, but there will be no significant impacts upon these. There is a stream running through the centre of the Site. A Construction Management Plan and other measures will reduce the potential for pollution to the stream so there will be no significant impact upon this. There will be no loss of trees or buildings with potential for bats, and the impact on bats will be minimised through planted buffers to the ancient woodland and stream. Light spillage cannot be completely removed so there could be a minor adverse impact on bats. There is a pond with potential to support Great Crested Newts 125m from the edge of the Site and so an European Protected Species license would be required for the proposed works. Mitigation will be provided by planting a mixed area of new woodland within the Site with glades and ponds. Other measures will include providing log piles and hibernacula. This mitigation will lead to a minor beneficial effect on newts. There will be significant areas of new planting on Site including the creation of a new woodland area. A series of ponds and swales are proposed as part of a sustainable drainage scheme. It is also proposed to provide bird boxes within the Site and green roofs, where appropriate. Transport The construction process is not expected to have a significant impact on the road network. Improvements are proposed to the M20 Junction 7, the A249 Bearsted Road Roundabout, and the New Cut Road/Bearsted Road/Site access roundabout. With these measures in place, these junctions are expected to perform better than they do now, which would be a beneficial effect of the development. The changes to Junction 7 would also be likely to DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 9
provide highway safety benefits, reducing the risk of accidents. Elsewhere, no significant impacts are expected to other junctions which are not proposed to be altered. The proposed public transport improvements are expected to result in minor beneficial effects, whilst improvements for walking and cycling would have moderate beneficial effects. Noise and Vibration It is inevitable that some noise disturbance will be caused during the construction phase. Accepted safeguards will be used to minimise noise nuisance. Such safeguards include siting plant away from noise-sensitive properties, erecting hoardings, and careful programming of deliveries. A vibration monitoring programme is also recommended, together with measures to minimise construction vibration. Such measures include careful choice of plant, removing obstructions when piling, and providing cutoff trenches to interrupt the transmission of vibrations. There could be short term, minor to moderate adverse noise and vibration impacts on neighbouring properties at some stages of construction. Some acoustic fencing is recommended at the completed development stage to ensure acceptable levels of road noise in residential garden areas. The precise locations for such fencing would be determined at the reserved matters stage. The use of standard double glazing will be an adequate measure to control interior noise levels throughout much of the Site. Noise and vibration impacts from additional road traffic would be negligible at both the construction and operational stages. There could be a minor to moderate impact on noise sensitive receptors due to mechanical and electrical plant noise. Drainage & Flood Risk There is an existing stream running through the centre of the Site in a north-south direction. There are no records of flooding associated with this stream. At the construction stage, risks of localised flooding and water pollution would be addressed by undertaking risk assessments and using best construction practice measures. This would reduce the risk to negligible. A sustainable drainage scheme would ensure that surface water would be discharged into the existing stream at a rate no greater than would occur if the site remained undeveloped. Trapped gullies and oil interceptors would prevent water pollution. These measures would ensure a negligible risk of flooding and water pollution. Improvements would be undertaken to ensure that sufficient capacity exists to deal with wastewater from the development. Air Quality Most of Maidstone has been declared by the Council as an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA). The Site falls outside the AQMA, but is immediately next to it and some of the access roads are located within it. An Air Quality Assessment has been carried out to consider the potential affects, in particular on nitrogen dioxide (NO ) and small particles (PM 10 ). Air quality effects were considered at both the construction and completed development phases. A number of proposals have been identified which could help reduce air quality impacts during the construction process. These include careful planning of the site s layout; hard surfaced site haul routes; effective cleaning of vehicles; and using water to suppress DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 10
dust, amongst other things. With these measures in place, there would be a negligible impact on nearby ecology and local residents as a result of construction activity. The assessment of pollutants arising from traffic generated by the development found that there would be a negligible impact on air quality at all sensitive locations and so no mitigation measures were required. Landscape & Visual Effects The Site is in the countryside and within the North Downs Special Landscape Area, but includes the KIMS hospital and access road which are currently being built. The rest of the site is open land. The surrounding landscape has been disturbed by the existing retail village, A249, Eclipse Park, M20 motorway, Channel Tunnel Rail Link and urban area of Maidstone. The site is well screened by mature woodland and vegetation to the north, east and south. The Shopping Village also screens most views from the west. The Proposed Development involves buildings of between 2 and 4½ storeys in height in a woodland/parkland setting. While the nature of much of the site would obviously change, the overall development would have a limited impact on the area around it. New buildings and features would not be widely visible. Views of buildings would either be short distance from close to the site boundary and from less sensitive locations, or from more sensitive locations (such as the AONB) but in more distant views. At first, there would be slight to moderate adverse effects on the local landscape in winter; these effects would be at a lower level in the summer, and would decrease slowly over time. There would be no significant effect on the North Downs AONB due to the distance involved. Only the roofs of some new buildings would be seen from the AONB, and large parts of Maidstone, Eclipse Park, the A249, M20, and KIMS would also be seen in those views. There would be slight to moderate adverse visual effects for a few properties close to the site on Bearsted Road. Archaeology & Cultural Heritage The Site does not contain any nationally designated (protected) assets, such as Scheduled Monuments, Listed Buildings or Registered Parks and Gardens. It does not lie within a Conservation Area or Archaeological Priority Area as defined by the local authority and does not contain any locally listed buildings. The closest listed building to the Site is the Grade II listed Newnham Court Farm, 100m to the west of the Site. This building has been developed around on all but its east side. The site has low to moderate potential for prehistoric and Roman remains; a low to moderate potential for medieval activity; and a moderate potential for postmedieval brick/tile manufacture, quarrying and agriculture. Any archaeological remains in this part of the site are likely to be located immediately beneath the topsoil. Further investigation of archaeological potential would be required to ensure that significant archaeological assets are not removed without being recorded and their significance understood. With this mitigation, the archaeological impact of the development would be negligible. The Proposed Development would have a minor adverse impact on the setting of Newnham Court Farm by developing the fields that once surrounded the farmhouse. Cumulative Impacts Cumulative impacts are where more than one individual impact may lead to a more significant impact DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 11
when considered in combination. Two types of cumulative impact have been considered: 1. 2. Intra-project effects - the effects arising from more than one environmental topic upon the same sensitive receptor; and Inter-project effects - the effects arising from more than one development. In terms of intra-project effects, the cumulative effects on local businesses and the vast majority of residents will be overwhelmingly beneficial. This is a result of benefits to the economy, employment, housing, health and education facilities and transport. The few residential properties closest to the Proposed Development in particular Gidds Pond Cottages may experience cumulative adverse impacts. At the construction phase, there is a possibility of short-term and occasional adverse noise impacts, particularly where construction work is taking place on parts of the Site closest to these properties. This will combine with adverse visual effects resulting from the change in outlook which inevitably results when a former agricultural field is developed. The minor adverse visual effect will continue for occupiers of these properties once the development is complete, again due to the change in outlook, but in combination with the beneficial effects of the development. The combination of minor adverse to moderate landscape effects and minor adverse night-time lighting effects would give rise to a minor to moderate adverse cumulative effect on the local landscape. Cumulative inter-projects were considered in relation to other schemes at Eclipse Park, Newnham Park and Maidstone Studios. There would be cumulative beneficial effects on the economy and employment. There could also be beneficial archaeological effects at the construction stage through better understanding of buried archaeology. There would be potential for minor adverse combined landscape effects through extension of the urban area. There could also be minor adverse combined effects on the setting of Newnham Court Farm, which is a listed building. Further Information Electronic copies of this Non- Technical Summary, the Environmental Statement Main Report and other planning application documents can be viewed free of charge on the authority s website: http://www.maidstone.gov.uk If you require further copies of this document, or if you would like to purchase copies of the Environmental Statement, please contact: DHA Environment Eclipse House Eclipse Park Sittingbourne Road Maidstone Kent ME14 3EN or send an email to: info@dhaenvironment.co.uk DHA Environment on behalf of Maidstone Medical Campus Ltd, June 2013 page 12