Peterborough’s Local Plan ‘will trash one of its finest assets’ says campaigner
Martin Chillcott believes there were flaws in the process of approving a new Draft Local Plan for the city
A campaigner says that a proposed plan for how Peterborough will grow over the next 20 years will drive “damaging urban sprawl” into the countryside.
Martin Chillcott, who set up the Protect Rural Peterborough campaign group in 2016 to save open countryside from overdevelopment, has urged the city council to reconsider its Local Plan.
Peterborough City Council’s Draft Local Plan has been approved for public consultation, to take place between April 11 and May 29, and includes a target of 20,120 houses to be built by 2044.
Within the draft plan, there are proposals to build 3,000 homes north of Castor and Ailsworth, which is land that Mr Chillcott said should be Peterborough’s “space to breathe”.
As well as having concerns about the location of the development itself, Mr Chillcott raised issues with the council’s “flawed” process in approving the draft plan.
He accused the council of not providing evidence to support the Castor and Ailsworth proposal, and was surprised that the proposal was not removed from the draft plan by cabinet despite a scrutiny committee recommending that it should be.
Mr Chillcott said: “Planners have suppressed key reports to support their proposal, which bizarrely the cabinet have then nodded through citing the scrutiny committee six-to-four vote and comments such as ‘half baked’ because they didn’t offer an alternative site.
“Most notably the site evidence report, which breaks down the suitability of each of the proposed development sites, has not been produced. So, neither the planning nor the scrutiny committees had sight of it and cabinet members are voting blind.”
Initially, the council’s cabinet were going to approve the draft plan before a scrutiny committee had reviewed it. But this was changed after Mr Chillcott brought it to members’ attention at a prior meeting.
Cabinet approved the draft plan on Monday, March 24.
The Protect Rural Peterborough group says that more than 200 Castor and Ailsworth residents met on that Monday to voice concerns about the housing proposals.
The group claims that, during the development of the previous Local Plan, the Castor and Ailsworth site got a ‘red’ rating for nature and another ‘red’ for a hazardous high pressure gas pipeline that runs through the site.
Mr Chillcott said: “Our villages are not opposed to growth. We have increased in size by 20 per cent in recent years, at the same rate as the wider city.
“But the new local plan has followed a flawed process lacking transparency that will drive damaging urban sprawl into the middle of Peterborough’s best countryside.
“We urge the council to think again before they trash one of our city’s finest assets. A landscape of Clare’s poetry, and the John Clare countryside nature recovery project, that should be Peterborough’s space to breathe.”
Gemma Wildman, planning policy manager for Peterborough City Council, said: “Engaging with our residents, businesses and other groups for their feedback is a very important step in creating a new Local Plan, which will determine how our city looks and grows for the next 20 years.
“The Sites Evidence Report will be published as part of the Draft Local Plan public consultation due to start on April 11. The Sites Evidence Reports sets out all site assessment criteria and scores.
“The full site suggested to the council for land north of the A47 and Castor and Ailsworth includes an area of land that falls within a gas pipeline. However, as part of the site assessment process the boundary of the site has been reviewed and this area of land has been removed from the proposed allocation, reducing the overall site area and capacity.”