 Landowners and residents saw that they were isolated in the absence of a railway, and proposed an independent scheme for a line.The first prospectus was presented to Parliament in 1865, outlining an "Elham Valley Light Railway Company" which would build a single-line railway starting at Hythe on the coast, running up through the Seabrook valley, through Newington and joining the existing SER and East Kent lines.The line was planned as a light railway with a maximum speed of .