Object

Representation ID: 7417

Received: 03/09/2021

Respondent: Axiom Great Barford Limited

Agent: Axiom Great Barford Limited

Whilst we have not reviewed all of the Council’s site assessments, we do have some concerns regarding the conclusions drawn and the approach taken in assessing the suitability of sites for development.
As already noted, Axiom’s site at Great Barford (referred to as ID767) has been robustly assessed by the Parish Council and their consultants and is considered to be the most appropriate location for growth in the settlement (see Policy H1).
A detailed Vision Document has been prepared for the site, which was submitted through the call for sites process, which contains details of the opportunities and constraints presented by the site.
We understand Countryside have also engaged in pre-application discussions with the Council and received initial advice on the suitability of the emerging proposals for Great Barford West.
None of this background information appears to have informed the assessment of the site published online, which in our view is an error and has led to some unjustified responses to the assessment questions.
We would expect the assessment of sites to be underpinned by a robust evidence base, which justifies the conclusions on the suitability of sites. Instead the assessment of Axiom’s site includes unevidenced conclusions such as ‘Potential access requiring mitigation’ and ‘Serious capacity constraint’ in relation to highways, conclusions which are not justified.
Moving forward, we would expect the assessment of sites to be more thorough and refer to the evidence base used to justify decisions. We have seen other plans fall down in recent years on a lack of transparency in the assessment process, which undermines the conclusions made. All sites should be assessed on a fair and equitable basis, utilising the available evidence, which does not currently appear to be the case.