Save Wincheap Water Meadows
Save Wincheap Water Meadows
Latest: Feb. 7, 2026
New Threat of Car Park on Wincheap Water Meadows!
Thank you very much for supporting th…
Who are we?
The Save Wincheap Water Meadows campaign is a coalition of residents and amenity societies in Canterbury who want to save an attractive stretch of the Stour river valley on which Canterbury City Council plans to build a car park.
The issue:
The proposed site for the car park is a Local Wildlife Site, on the floodplain, in an Area of High Landscape Value and part of the designated Stour Valley Green Corridor. Otters are among the wildlife that have been known to visit this habitat.
The Council says that it is essential to go ahead with the car park in order to extend the Park & Ride at Wincheap once the new A2 slip road has been built. The Council has given itself planning permission, but we say that there are other sites that it could use or that it could deck part of the existing car park.
Our case:
We have launched a Judicial Review to challenge the planning committee’s decision and the way it was arrived at. The legal challenge rests on three grounds:
• Failure to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment;
• Legal errors in the Habitats Regulation Assessment;
• Misleading claims that the site had been ‘allocated’ in the Local Plan and that it would not have a harmful effect on the landscape.
We are working together with the countryside charity CPRE Kent and have promised that we will raise £5000 to help fund the initial phase of the legal challenge. This is to pay the costs of preparing and filing the application for a Judicial Review. We need your support. Please help us to save this precious stretch of river valley for future generations.
Thank you for your time and donations!
Get updates about this case
Subscribe to receive email updates from the case owner on the latest news about the case.
Save Wincheap Water Meadows
Feb. 7, 2026
New Threat of Car Park on Wincheap Water Meadows!
Thank you very much for supporting the campaign several years ago to protect Wincheap Water Meadows from being tarmacked over for the construction of a car park. The campaign was very successful in demonstrating the strength of public opposition to the construction of a car park on Wincheap Water Meadows - an area of wetland which is part of a Functional Floodplain, Area of High Landscape Value, Local Wildlife Site and designated Green Corridor upstream of Canterbury.
The public’s opposition to the car park on the wetlands, combined with Highways England’s refusal to approve the design of the off-slip from the A2, led Canterbury City Council to revoke the planning permission that it had granted itself in 2020. This was a huge achievement. We were, consequently, saddened and shocked to learn this week that the proposal to build a car park on the Water Meadows is back on Canterbury City Council's agenda.
The Council's Overview Committee will, at its meeting next Thursday (12 February), be asked to consider six options for the future of the Park & Ride after a revised new A2 slip road is created. Two of the options involve putting the car park on Wincheap Water Meadows. Two further options involve the revival of the equally awful proposal to put it on Thanington Recreation Ground, which is the only meaningful area of public open space for the community of Thanington. All four proposals are simply wrong. There are two other options the Committee will also be looking at, and its recommendations will be passed on to Cabinet who will make a decision about which option to include in the Local Plan.
Thank you in advance!
Sian and Rick (on behalf of the SWWM campaign)
Get updates about this case
Subscribe to receive email updates from the case owner on the latest news about the case.
Recent contributions