Planning Concern — Disproportionate Scale
Kempston Rural has no shop, no pub, no GP, and around 330 existing homes. A 420-home development would more than double its size overnight. This is not growth. It is structural transformation.
Kempston Rural is a small rural parish in Bedford Borough — characterised by open countryside, scattered farms, and a small cluster of residential properties. It is not a town, not a service centre, and has no significant infrastructure to support large-scale housing growth.
Unlike its larger neighbour Kempston, Kempston Rural is a distinct rural community — and must be treated as one in any planning decision.
Kempston Rural currently has none of the services needed to sustain a settlement of 750+ homes:
~330 existing homes + 420 new homes = a 127% increase overnight.
With approximately 330 existing dwellings, adding 420 new homes would represent an increase of over 125%. This is not infill development or organic growth — it is a fundamental transformation of a rural settlement.
National planning policy requires development to be sustainable in both location and scale. Kempston Rural is inherently car-dependent, infrastructure-light, and entirely unsuited to absorbing a settlement-doubling expansion.
We are not opposed to all development. A modest scheme of perhaps 20–30 homes would be more proportionate to the size, character, and infrastructure capacity of Kempston Rural — and would better align with the principles of sustainable development.
This campaign is not anti-development. It is pro-appropriate, pro-proportionate, and pro-sustainable planning.
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