The Dartford, Gravesham and Medway merger was paused on 7 September, so the borough stays your planning authority. Westgate approved, Ebbsfleet past 5,000 homes.

Dartford is one of the fastest-building boroughs in Kent, and 2026 is a year when several long-running schemes are actually landing: the £30m Westgate scheme on the old Co-op site won permission in June, the Orchard Theatre reopens in December after its concrete crisis, and Ebbsfleet Garden City has passed 5,000 homes with outline permission granted for its next 2,100. This page sets out the planning picture for the borough: what the Local Plan requires, who decides what, the schemes that matter now, and how to track or comment on any application near you.

Dartford development and planning news in 2026: the year so far

Five things have moved the borough’s planning picture this year. In date order:

When What happened
16 July 2026 Ministers decided Kent and Medway will be served by four new unitary councils from April 2028, with Dartford, Gravesham and Medway forming the northern one
18 June 2026 The Development Control Board approved Westgate, the roughly £30m redevelopment of the former Co-op store, up to 69 homes and three flexible cinema or live music venues
Summer 2026 Ebbsfleet passed 5,000 homes built, with outline permission granted for the next 2,100
7 September 2026 The government paused the whole reorganisation programme pending a review, so the four-council map for Kent is on hold
12 December 2026 The Orchard Theatre reopens after RAAC removal, with an £11.6m budget approved to finish the job

The council that will decide your application may not exist in 2028

The single biggest open question for anyone with a long-running scheme in Dartford is who will be deciding it. On 16 July 2026 the Secretary of State chose a four-unitary map for Kent and Medway, replacing Kent County Council, Medway Council and the twelve district, borough and city councils. Dartford would have been merged with Gravesham and Medway into a single northern unitary from April 2028. Dartford’s leader, Cllr Jeremy Kite, responded that “nothing will change overnight” and that the council would keep delivering services until spring 2028.

Then on 7 September 2026 the government pulled the handbrake. Following what its own release calls “updated and privileged legal advice”, ministers withdrew the decisions for Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk outright and paused the plans for fourteen further areas, Kent and Medway among them, pending a review with no published reporting date. Dartford Borough Council’s response was that council leaders across the county “will be seeking clarity from the government on a number of issues”.

What that means in practice, for now:

  • Dartford Borough Council remains your planning authority, and the Development Control Board remains the decision-maker on major schemes. Nothing about how you apply, object or appeal has changed.
  • The Dartford Plan, adopted 22 April 2024, is still the development plan and still sets the 790-homes-a-year figure. A reorganisation would eventually require a new local plan across the merged area, but that is years away and cannot start while the programme is paused.
  • Treat any “new north Kent council” date you read as provisional. April 2028 was the decided date on 16 July; since 7 September it has been neither confirmed nor withdrawn.
  • Ebbsfleet is a separate question. Applications inside the Garden City boundary go to the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, not to the borough, and the corporation’s status does not depend on the local government map.

The Local Plan: 790 homes a year, almost all brownfield

The rulebook for development here is the Dartford Local Plan, adopted on 22 April 2024, which runs to 2037 (Dartford Borough Council). Its core numbers: 790 new homes a year on average, 12,640 across the plan period from 2021 to 2037, with a target for 80% of new homes on brownfield land (the Dartford Plan).

Unlike most Kent neighbours, Dartford is comfortably supplied with building land. The council’s December 2025 assessment confirms a 5.84-year deliverable housing supply, against the five years Government requires (five-year housing supply statement). And delivery is running at the target for the first time: 817 net new homes were completed in 2024/25, up from 674 the year before, with 99% of them on brownfield land (Authority Monitoring Report 2024/25).

Bar chart of new homes built in Dartford: 674 in 2023/24 and 817 in 2024/25, against the Local Plan target of 790 homes a year
Net new homes completed in Dartford borough against the Local Plan's 790-a-year average. Data from the council's Authority Monitoring Report 2024/25. Chart by Dartford Online.

Earlier shortfalls still count against the record: the Government’s 2024 Housing Delivery Test scored Dartford at 90% of its requirement, which obliged the council to publish a Housing Action Plan in 2025 (Authority Monitoring Report). There is no new Local Plan consultation under way; the council’s position, restated to councillors in November 2025, is that the adopted 2024 plan “continues to set the Borough’s development strategy”, with supplementary documents on topics such as HMOs and the town centre expected next rather than a fresh plan (Local Plan update report, November 2025).

What it means for you: with an up-to-date plan and more than five years of housing land, Dartford is far less exposed to speculative “planning by appeal” development than districts without one. If a site is not allocated in the 2024 plan, a developer has a much harder case.

Ebbsfleet Garden City: 5,000 homes in, up to 15,000 planned

The biggest building site in the borough is not run by the council. The Government-established Ebbsfleet Development Corporation is the planning authority for the Garden City area, delivering up to 15,000 homes across parts of Dartford and Gravesham, though Dartford’s Local Plan still sets the policies in the Dartford part (EDC, Authority Monitoring Report).

Two recent milestones show the pace. The Garden City’s 5,000th home was completed in December 2025 (Ebbsfleet Garden City). Then in March 2026, Ebbsfleet Central East, a 35-hectare brownfield scheme wrapped around Ebbsfleet International station, was granted outline permission: around 2,100 homes with a minimum 35% affordable, plus about 87,000 square metres of offices, retail and open space, with a legal agreement funding a new primary school (Ebbsfleet Garden City). That scheme is the start of the Garden City’s long-promised “city centre”, and its build-out will shape house prices and school places across the borough for a decade.

The town centre: Westgate approved, the Orchard comes back

The decision of the year for Dartford town centre came on 18 June 2026, when the council’s Development Control Board approved Westgate, the roughly £30m redevelopment of the derelict former Co-op department store between Spital Street and Hythe Street. The Peter Barber-designed scheme packs in up to 69 homes (20% affordable), nearly 1,900 square metres of commercial space, and three flexible venues that could operate as a cinema or live music space, on a largely car-free layout with 133 cycle spaces. Work could start in early 2027 (KentOnline, June 2026).

Next door in the timeline sits the Orchard Theatre, shut since 2023 after dangerous RAAC concrete was found in its roof. The RAAC has now been fully removed, the council has approved an £11.6m budget to finish the works, and the theatre is due to be handed back to its operator in late November, reopening with the Cinderella pantomime on 12 December 2026. The temporary Orchard West venue closes after September 2026, and its site is needed for the Westgate build (Dartford Borough Council). What that means for a night out in the meantime is covered in our guide to things to do in Dartford.

Housing is also going up in the town centre itself, with 41 homes completed in central Dartford in 2024/25, including 35 at the East of Lowfield Street allocation (Authority Monitoring Report).

The Green Belt position

Just over half of Dartford borough is Metropolitan Green Belt, mostly across the rural south around Wilmington, Darenth and Longfield, and the adopted plan directs growth to “sustainable locations in the urban north” instead (the Dartford Plan). The monitoring data backs that up: in 2024/25 the council consented no major development in the Green Belt at all; the applications it did decide there were overwhelmingly householder extensions and individual dwellings (Authority Monitoring Report).

What it means for you: if you live in the borough’s southern villages, the plan’s pressure points are not on your fields; Dartford’s growth is concentrated on the brownfield riverside and Ebbsfleet. The trade-off is that the north carries the construction traffic and the strain on roads and services while it builds.

How to follow or comment on an application

Every live application in the council’s area is public on Dartford’s Public Access portal, including a weekly list of everything newly validated. Larger or contested schemes go to the Development Control Board with an officer recommendation; the rest are decided by officers under delegated powers. Our step-by-step guide to searching and commenting on Dartford planning applications covers how to use the portal, deadlines and what counts as a valid objection. For schemes inside the Garden City boundary, applications go to the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation instead.

We update this page as the year’s big decisions land. Last checked 21 September 2026.

Sources

Facts checked against the council’s published documents in August 2026. Scheme timetables shift; confirm dates against the linked sources before relying on them.