The hamlet of Chilmington Green has stood since Saxon times in the gentle green expanses of the Weald of Kent, fittingly described as "the place where London ends and England can begin". It is home to 13 properties (most of them listed), an array of wildlife (some of it endangered) and 40 residents, all of them very determined. The local authority, Ashford Borough Council, has big plans for Chilmington Green, which will transform a peaceful idyll into a bustling extension of Ashford town, with 7,000 new houses built on 1,000 acres of what has always been prime farming land. The residents, unsurprisingly, want none of it. Equally unsurprisingly, they have been accused of Nimbyism, a charge they strongly deny. "We are not a bunch of middle-class white people who want to hang on to the nice views from our windows, " says Max Frohnsdorff, co-ordinator of the Keep Chilmington Green campaign. "We are against the development because nobody has explained why we need it. Ashford is not growing, so who are the houses for? If someone had ever offered any justification, we would accept it. But we have had neither justification nor consultation. All the council has said is: 'You've got to have it.' This is a vanity project driven by greed, not need."
