Site Assessment Pro Formas

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Representation ID: 8591

Received: 27/09/2021

Respondent: Elstow Parish Council

As local authority Officers know, the site known as Medbury Farm within the parish, was
allocated in the Allocations and Designations Local Plan 2013 as a 31ha B1 business park.
Elstow Parish Council were throughout the Plan consultation phase strongly in objection to this.
It is understood that despite discussions since allocation, no site-wide masterplan was
forthcoming, no planning application was ever made and therefore, thankfully no planning
permission was issued for this enormous site. Unsurprisingly, yet still very disappointingly, the
site was submitted through the ‘Call for Sites’ 2020 process as a potential housing site with
capacity up to 1400 dwellings. This has always been a great worry that this site would receive
an employment allocation, that was clearly never going to be delivered, to then reappear as a
site for housing.
Elstow Parish Council wish to make it abundantly clear that this site which has not in the last
twenty years been so much even attempted to be progressed must not be considered for
housing not just to the over-riding factors listed previously, also contained within this response,
but in addition to the fact this site is clearly undeliverable.
The Parish Council were concerned as well that the loss of such a large employment site
previously allocated would put pressure on the local authority to meet the required deliver of
such land in the immediate and near future. It is understood that Officers are following this up to better understand the intentions of the land owner. If all or some of the employment allocation is
not to be delivered, then the ‘lost’ employment land will need to be re provided in the Local Plan
2040. This outcome is a worry for Elstow and should be a Borough wide concern, as it
increases pressure on the delivery for the lifetime of this new Local Plan.