Chevening plan to block view of M25 sparks local row

Plans to build four earth mounds at the foreign secretary's grace-and-favour country estate in Kent have met with anger after an inspector gave consent.

The mounds would block views of the M25 from the historic Chevening House.

Local people say up to 80 lorries a day will visit the site, damaging the environment. They have also claimed the scheme will raise money for the estate.

Chevening's trustees said the scheme was designed to mitigate the impact of the M25 and not to raise income.

Sevenoaks District Council had refused the plans to build the earth mounds to mitigate visual harm caused by nearby elevated sections of the M25 and M26 motorways.

But Chevening's board of trustees successfully appealed and has now been granted permission, after a government inspector gave a decision on Monday.

Local resident Judith Hayton said: "There are other things you could do that would actually disguise the view of the M25 for approaching dignitaries."

The 115-room mansion was gifted to the nation in the 1950s.

Since then, it has been up to the prime minister to decide who uses Chevening, with the foreign secretary the usual beneficiary.

Nigel Britton, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "To make [the mounds] will require something like five years of importing landfill - basically, hardcore rubbish to be topped with top soil.

"We live in an environment emergency at the moment and the pollution that that's going to cause quite unnecessarily, I don't think is justified."

Sevenoaks councillor Nigel Williams said: "We think it's commercial. For every lorry load of rubble dumped, obviously they get a fee from the people who dump it. And with that magnitude would it be many millions? We've asked them how much they are going to make and they refused to tell us."

In a statement, the Chevening trustees said: "The parkland scheme has been designed to mitigate the impact of the motorway and not as an income-raising project.

"Neither the cost of landscaping nor the price paid for receiving material are yet known."

A Sevenoaks council spokeswoman said: "We're disappointed to have lost this planning appeal.

"It was originally rejected as we considered the proposal would be an inappropriate development in the green belt and we are committed to protecting green belt land in the district."

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].