The redevelopment of the Marley Tiles site offers a win-win opportunity for the borough, and for Kent.
Marley Tile has re-located to Panattoni Park Aylesford, where it now occupies a purpose-built facility, five miles away from Wrotham near Junction 4 of the M20. This has provided an opportunity to re-develop this key allocated employment site for modern, high quality warehouse accommodation.
These proposals would convert a dated, largely redundant site – there is a temporary tenant occupying part of it – into a well-designed contemporary facility able to accommodate up to six businesses, employing a range of 140 to 265 people between them.
The proposed development has been carefully designed to ensure that it is sensitive to the surrounding area. It will make much better use of this brownfield site within the Green Belt that has been used for employment purposes for more than 50 years.
The development would offer the opportunity for local employment in a range of roles and activities including office, warehousing, transport and delivery.
The companies on site would be housed in two separate buildings. The space would be divided as follows: one unit of approximately 8,000ft2, two units of 15,000ft2, one of 20,000ft2 and one of 25,000ft2, with a sixth standalone unit of 50,000ft2 in size.
The buildings would be suitable for flexible B2 (general industrial) /B8 (storage and distribution) use, with ancillary office space and associated access, servicing, parking and landscaping.
The buildings will target a BREEAM rating of ‘excellent’, feature roof-mounted solar panels and generate at least 10% of their energy requirement from renewable energy sources. To reduce energy consumption, the proposals will likely include highly efficient internal and external LED lighting, controlled with movement and light sensors to make use of natural daylight and save energy.
State of the art heating/cooling technology will be provided in the office areas to minimise the CO² impact of the buildings.
The site is allocated by Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council for employment use.
The development is being built speculatively to meet the needs of the local property market. We are confident that there will be a high demand for the units as the types of buildings being proposed are in short supply in Kent and the wider south east.
The development will be attractive to companies involved in distribution, logistics, warehousing and general industrial activities. Many of these businesses typically require the flexibility to operate 24/7 which is in line with the site’s current permitted operating hours.
Occupiers are likely to include businesses relocating from elsewhere in the borough/Kent who are looking for new, larger or better more energy efficient and sustainable premises. This would have the knock-on effect of freeing up space elsewhere in the borough. We would also expect to see organisations from further afield wanting to invest in Kent and expand into the local area.
The site access will remain unchanged with the A20 London Road current entrance/exit – with improvements – being used.
The access junction will remain left and right turn into the site, and left out only onto the London Road. The existing traffic island will be modified to reinforce the existing prohibited right-turning manoeuvres out of the site.
It is estimated the new occupants would generate approximately 90 two-way movements in the weekday morning and evening peak hour periods when fully operational, equating to 1-2 vehicle movements per minute. The impact will be less during the off-peak periods. An assessment of the operation of the access junction demonstrates that it will function well, with no material queuing or delay.
A detailed Transport Assessment is currently being produced and this will assess the traffic implications of the proposals along the A20 corridor in the vicinity of the site as well as the M26 Junction 2A. The scope and methodology of the traffic impact assessment and other highways and transport matters have been agreed with Kent County Council and National Highways.
To reduce commuter traffic, employees will be encouraged to walk or cycle to work. There will be a network of walkways running through the site and joining up with the footpath on the A20, as well bike shelters and electric bike charging points. Priority parking will also be given to staff who carshare.
The proposals will include sufficient on-site car and cycle parking provision to meet the expected parking demand arising from future employees and visitors to the site. There will also be adequate on-site parking for vans and HGVs.
The lighting scheme has been developed to reduce the effect of external lighting on the surrounding areas – and the policy of using downward light will always be retained and implemented into the detailed design stage. All external lighting will be designed to limit the spread of light beyond the areas to be illuminated, preventing glare and limiting the emission of upward light.
The lighting scheme is based around a low pollution, low energy and low maintenance strategy. Considerations have also given to low energy products which have excellent light control optics to maximise efficiencies, minimise their carbon footprint and reduce their impact on the local ecology. Wildlife-friendly lighting hues will be used near areas of ecological interest.
All external lighting would be controlled with a photocell and time clock with lighting energised at low ambient lighting and switched off during daylight hours.
With a carefully designed lighting scheme in place, it is considered that no significant effects will arise during the operational phase of the scheme.
Residential amenity would also be protected by locating the service yards away from the nearest housing, shielded by the buildings themselves. In addition, there would also be green edge landscape buffers to the site to soften views, with acoustic fencing provided where required to muffle noise.