Peterborough City Council planning committee chairman Cllr Chris Harper explains the details of decisions on plans to develop the East of England Showground
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00:00Two applications particularly came forward to do with the East Bringand Shareground.
00:04The first one involved 850 homes, a leisure facility, a care home facility, roadways etc.
00:13It's an outline plan, so most of the things that are in that are effectively the density
00:19and the access.
00:22Committee people spoke on behalf of either for or against, the committee questioned those
00:28people, democracy was done and the decision of that committee at the time was to grant
00:33that approval for the 850 homes along with the other facilities that have come forward.
00:39The second one, which was linked to it, was for a further 650 homes on the East Bringand
00:45Shareground.
00:47That one again, same process went through, people for or against, councillors spoke very
00:52well about their area, but that one was defeated.
00:56That one was seen, and that was my proposal in the end, was seen as too many houses, the
01:02loss of the Speedway and the Shareground was too much, there was nothing in there to really
01:07replace that which the NPPF calls for, that if we're going to lose those sort of things
01:13we need to find somewhere else for them to be of a similar value or better.
01:18The second application was purely housing and nothing else, so from my personal point
01:23of view it's the right decision that there's not enough in there for us to approve that
01:27and quite rightly and subsequently it was refused.
01:30What I would like to see coming from this is the fact that this forces people to the
01:34table because it was mentioned that from Speedway it's actually they didn't feel they had a
01:37proper chance to consult and work with the actual owners of the sharefield, hopefully
01:44they will come together, maybe they can come up with a plan for an alternative that is
01:49as good as, if not better, and maybe we can move forward.
01:54That would be for them to decide.
01:55Yes, I'm pleased with the decision that preserves Speedway and Peterborough, I'm pleased that
02:01the application which sought to kill off Speedway and Peterborough has been refused.
02:06It may come back, that's not within our control, the applicant may re-jig it, the NPPF may check,
02:12there are various circumstances that we don't know about, but so far it's been refused in this form.
02:17The alternative land use sought by the applicant can't now proceed in the way that the applicant
02:23seeks it, so it's created a bit of a vacuum, so the applicant can't do with the land what
02:32it said it wanted to do, so something has to change, something has to give.
02:36We hope that give will be a meaningful conversation and dialogue about Speedway, for the reasons
02:42that the Chairman has articulated.
02:45Its position is cemented in the local plan, and its position nationally is cemented by the NPPF.