The Issues and Options consultation was not sound or fair. Staploe Parish Council objected on our behalf to the suggestion in the brown option that our parish is a 'brownfield site' or 'under utilised land'. The Parish Council has stated, and I agree
"Our whole parish is classed as open countryside for planning purposes. Our three tiny hamlets are not even classed as a small settlement in the Local Plan 2030 definition (6.21) and we are therefore defined as open countryside. Describing the brown option which would see the majority of our parish covered in a large scale, high density, urban development as using brownfield or under utilised land is very misleading. It compromises the validity of the consultation as those responding would logically propose development on brownfield or underutilised land over greenfield sites.
We believe the pros and cons list for the brown option is very inaccurate for our parish. A large development in Staploe parish would not support services etc in Bedford – we are 13 miles away and people would use services in St. Neots which are already under pressure due to large scale development on the eastern side of the town. There would be very little potential for residents here to make sustainable travel choices – we have one bus on Thursday and it would require huge investment to improve public transport. This would not reduce the need for growth in rural areas – we are a rural area and it proposes building all over our parish. Development in our parish would
not improve viability of retail and leisure in Bedford Borough. People would go to St. Neots.”

This is still a fair reflection that the issues and options consultation was flawed because it led people to believe that our rural parish was urban with underutilised or brownfield land which is wrong.

The issues and options consultation was conducted during the covid pandemic when it was not possible to meet more than 6 people outside. We believe this was reflected in the responses: Number of respondents = 315
• 222 were from within the borough – out of a total estimated population of 174,687. This is a pitiful 0.12% response rate
• 93 were from outside the Borough or did not give a postcode
• 53% were from individuals.
Top areas for numbers of responses:
• Bedford 46
• Sharnbrook 23
• Staploe 18 (a 6% response rate which was 50 times the Borough average)
• By contrast – no other areas were in double figures. This brings into further question the
validity of the consultation.