Campaigners are celebrating victory as a plan for a 2,000-home ‘garden village’ between Bracknell and Maidenhead has been dealt a major blow.
A trio of stakeholders were hoping to build 2,000 homes surrounding the Syngenta International Research Centre at Jealott’s Hill, three miles north of Bracknell.
Called the Jealott’s Hill Consortium, it was made up of Syngenta, the multi-national agricultural science company, investment company CEG and housebuilders Taylor Wimpey.
But the proposal for the garden village has been opposed from the outset by the Save Jealott’s Hill campaign, made up of a committed group of neighbours.
The consortium was hoping for the land surrounding the Syngenta site to be redesignated from Green Belt to developable land so the garden village could be built.
The land could only be redesignated within Bracknell Forest Council’s Local Plan process, which included the 2,000-home proposal in the plan as policy LP7.
But the campaign has consistently argued that the Green Belt can only be built on in ‘exceptional circumstances’ and that the consortium’s justification for redesignating the land was flawed.
Now, government planning inspectors have judged that the garden village -policy LP7- should be removed from the plan altogether, expressed in a letter received by Bracknell Forest Council on January 19.
It comes after the inspectors held a series of hearings that took place in 2022 to determine whether the plan could be adopted.
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The recommendation that the garden village plan should be deleted has been seized on as a victory by the campaigners.
Patrick Kennedy, chairman of the campaign committee said: “We are delighted by the Inspectors decision to comprehensively reject the council’s plan.
“The Inspectors’ decision to specifically instruct the council to delete Policy LP7 (Jealott’s Hill) from the Plan is very welcome and a triumph for local community action against a set of deplorable planning proposals put forward by the council.
“Had this been passed, it would have devastated a significant piece of the Green Belt, would have extinguished over 100 hectares of prime agricultural land, would have led to gross urbanisation of a rural area and would have introduced dangerous levels of traffic to the area without adequate plans to successfully address that.
“These proposals were not founded on any proven need, beyond a desire by land owners Syngenta to develop the Science & Innovation Park.
“To attempt to make the Science & Innovation Park financially viable, they proposed to fund it by building 2000 un-needed houses in an isolated location on agricultural Green Belt land.”
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Reacting to the suggested deletion of its proposal, a spokesperson from the Jealott’s Hill consortium said: “This is a very disappointing decision and we will be considering our options and next steps.”
The planning inspectors made their judgement known in a document titled ‘Bracknell Forest Local Plan Post Hearings Letter’.
The inspectors have made suggested ‘main modifications’ which they have asked the council’s planning department to undertake.
When first introduced in 2019, the Jealott’s Hill proposal contained 4,000 homes, which was reduced to 2,000 in 2021.
The existing Syngenta site is located three miles north of Bracknell town centre and approximately six miles south of Maidenhead.
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