East of England Showground officially surrenders events licence

The long history of the East of England Showground hosting events has come to end after the premises officially surrendered its licence.

The East of England Showground Services Ltd has informed the council of its intent to surrender its licence to host events at the Peterborough Arena, located on the Showground site.

Permission has been granted for land agents AEPG to build 1,500 homes plus a leisure village and other amenities on the 164-acre East of England Showground by Peterborough City Council.

The council’s planning committee appeals and planning review committee approved the outline planning approval for the 650 homes- which would be located on the part of the Showground Occupied by the Peterborough Panthers’ speedway track for since their formation in 1970- last month after plans were initially refused.

Four months previous, the planning committee approved a separate outline planning application from AEPG for 850 homes plus a 50 acre leisure village, school, hotel and care village on an adjoining part of the Showground.

Plans for the leisure-led development of the East of England Showground were first unveiled three years ago.

The move came after the venue’s owners, the East of England Agricultural Society, had announced it had no further use for the land and that holding public events on the site had made a £6 million loss over the last 10 years.

The plans faced significant opposition from residents, however, who argues that the schemes represented an overdevelopment of the site and would pose serious traffic issues, as well as effectively end the highly successful Peterborough Panthers Speedway Club.

Campaigners pushing to oppose the development have not ruled out the possibility of a judicial review.

In October, a six month deadline was set for AEPG to resolve traffic concerns otherwise a refusal notice could be issued. Even though the planning application has been passed by the committee, highways officials stated that there are still outstanding technical issues to be resolved.

These concern the upgrade and signalisation of Oundle Road, Orton Parkway roundabout and safety measures around Linden Gardens.

The plans envisaged all traffic from the new development would use Joseph Odam Way as the entrance and exit but campaigners claim this would just push even more traffic on to an already busy Oundle Road. They have claimed that, if there was an accident, Joseph Odam Way would be blocked and there would be traffic gridlock in the neighbourhood.

The surrender of the Showground’s licence marks one of the final chapters of the venue’s long history as an event space, with popular events such at Truckfest, Festival of Antiques, Modified Nationals, The National Motorhome & Campervan Show and New Wine all being forced out of the city.