Maidstone Borough Council’s Cabinet has dropped a £714,369 M20 Junction 7 contribution from its second round of Community Infrastructure Levy allocations, but stopped short of handing the money to the Leeds and Broomfield cricket pavilion as a committee had urged. The pavilion will be considered only if reserve funds remain, newly published minutes show.

A bid to redirect Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) money from the M20 Junction 7 upgrade to a village cricket pavilion won the backing of a Maidstone Borough Council committee in July, only for the council’s Cabinet to take a different course two weeks later, according to minutes now published by the council.

The Planning and Healthier Stronger Communities Policy Advisory Committee voted on 7 July 2026 to recommend removing the Kent County Council junction scheme from the allocations and funding the Leeds and Broomfield Cricket Pavilion instead. When Cabinet met on 22 July it agreed to remove the junction scheme, but decided to hold the unallocated money in reserve rather than commit it to the pavilion.

What officers proposed

Fourteen bids were received for the council’s second strategic CIL bidding round, which invited applications between 1 September and 30 November 2025. Officers appraised them and referred the results to independent consultants Rumfitt Associates Limited for moderation. Nine projects were recommended for funding, with a combined value of £13,731,714.

The council had collected £7.69 million in strategic CIL receipts as at 17 June 2026, with a further £6.2 million forecast to be available by 31 March 2030. Strategic CIL represents between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of all CIL receipts collected by the council.

The officer report set out the history of the Junction 7 scheme. In the first CIL round the council allocated £1,836,729 to Kent County Council for the project and at the time indicated a willingness to provide a further £0.5 million as a loan, an intention the report says was never formalised. In round two the county council sought an additional £3.35 million, citing scope changes and inflationary pressures.

Officers instead proposed £714,369, which they described as effectively substituting for the previously anticipated loan. The report said Kent County Council had submitted an expression of interest on 19 June to the government’s National Highways Growth and Housing Accelerator fund, which can provide 25 per cent match funding for highways schemes, with scheme delivery expected in 2030/2031 if the bid succeeds.

The committee vote on 7 July

Several members of the policy advisory committee expressed concern that additional funding was being given to Kent County Council for works on M20 Junction 7 when the round one funding had not been released. The Head of Planning and Economic Development explained that the round one funds had not been released because the works had not met the required stage.

Councillor Cooke moved that Cabinet be recommended to move the M20 Junction 7 bid from the proposed allocations and instead allocate funding to the Leeds and Broomfield Cricket Pavilion. This was seconded by Councillor Springett. Before the vote, the Strategic Planning Manager made the committee aware that the recommendation to proceed with the junction bid was based on its direct link to the Maidstone Local Plan, and that if the bid was not successful it could impact the mitigation of the plan. The motion was agreed.

Members also queried the bid from Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, noting that the school had already secured more than £8.6 million from other contributions and asking why the CIL bid would exceed the total project cost. Councillor Harper moved that Cabinet be recommended to allocate £1,390,000, subject to officer clarification, rising to £2,490,000 if the full amount was required. That was also agreed.

The committee’s recommended list to Cabinet was: Leeds and Broomfield Cricket Pavilion £800,000; Maidstone Girls Grammar School £1,390,000, subject to clarification; Lenham Nursery School £450,000; Nettlestead Puffin Crossing £200,000; Staplehurst Community Centre £550,000; Bredhurst Village Hall £900,000; One Maidstone Health Hub £1,000,000; Heart of Kent Hospice £3,530,000; and Maidstone East Park £3,897,345.

What Cabinet decided on 22 July

An urgent update to Cabinet answered the committee’s question on the school. Officers confirmed a total scheme cost of £9,969,679.74, with £8,630,143.34 available from other funding, a funding gap of £1,339,536.40 and total CIL sought of £2,492,419.94. The update said Kent County Council has a statutory duty to seek recovery of costs where additional demand arises from housing growth, and that it was entirely reasonable for the county council to seek to recover costs it had incurred. The officer recommendation of £2.49 million therefore remained unchanged.

The Cabinet report’s legal section warned that Cabinet can disagree with officers but should have clear planning, infrastructure, financial or community-based reasons for doing so, and that a decision could be vulnerable to challenge if it departed from the council’s adopted CIL governance framework without justification. At the meeting the Head of Planning and Economic Development asked Cabinet to clearly state its reasoning for any changes to avoid the potential for legal challenge.

Councillors Cooke, Fort, Jones and Russell spoke as visiting members. Several members agreed they would prefer the M20 Junction 7 upgrade to be removed given that funds from the previous CIL bidding round had not yet been utilised. It was agreed that it would be more sensible to hold the unallocated funds in reserve and to add a second recommendation leaving the Leeds and Broomfield Cricket Pavilion to be considered for any remaining funds.

Cabinet resolved to allocate CIL funding to eight projects: Maidstone Girls Grammar School £2,490,000; Lenham Nursery School £450,000; Nettlestead Puffin Crossing £200,000; Staplehurst Community Centre £550,000; Bredhurst Village Hall £900,000; One Maidstone Health Hub £1,000,000; Heart of Kent Hospice £3,530,000; and Maidstone East Park £3,897,345. Those allocations total £13,017,345. Its second resolution was that the Leeds and Broomfield Cricket Pavilion be considered as an allocation in the case that there are remaining reserve funds.

The minutes of both meetings have been published by the council ahead of their formal approval as a correct record.

Sources

Top image: the pavilion at Leeds Cricket Club, near Maidstone. Photo: N Chadwick / Geograph, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.