West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) Planning Policy Committee are seeking people’s views on a new draft Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for employment land allocations in the area, which would sit alongside the South Northamptonshire Local Plan Part 2 to help inform decision-making on planning applications.
We would urge residents to read and respond, especially with regards to AL5 – Land at Former Furtho Pit, Old Stratford/Cosgrove. The deadline for all responses is midnight on 18 August 2022
The main proposals can be found throughout the SPD:
It is worth noting that following a recent consultation exercise the Parish Council are aware of proposals to submit a planning application at this site for
“9 no. logistic units comprising 70,743sq.m/ 761,471 sq.ft (GIA) of floor space within Class B2 and B8 uses of Town and Country Planning Use Classes Order 1987, with ancillary E(g)(i) offices and Class E(g)(ii) for research and development of products and processes, together with a Country Park, ground re-profiling in the Country Park, new vehicular access from the A508 and associated site infrastructure including lorry parking”
We are currently preparing our response to the consultation and will publish it in due course), and have already been in dialogue with the authorities to express our concerns.
In our response to the SPD consultation we will give consideration to a number of areas such as:
- size and scale of development, including lack of proposed height restrictions. Lack of materials specification
- the comparisons made with developments in the adjacent Milton Keynes authority
- proposals for large scale vehicle movements being contrary to the WNC ambitions for “zero carbon”. Lack of public transport to the site for employees will exacerbate this
- creation of hardstanding likely to exacerbate flooding risk in the neighbouring flood plain area
- existing traffic issues in the area, along with future increased traffic from the J15 development, without additional traffic flow
