Could Syngenta leave Bracknell over Jealott's Hill plan?

Agricultural science and technology firm Syngenta said in 2021 that it needed to build the ‘garden village’ at Jealotts Hill to help fund a new science park and laboratory. It said that without this, it could gradually have to move its facility out of the country.

But government planning inspectors disagreed – forcing Bracknell Forest Council to say it wouldn’t allow the homes to be built.

Inspectors said the garden village would cause ‘substantial harm’ to the surrounding area.

READ MORE: 'Bracknell without a forest,' councillor warns

A report produced for the council in 2021 said Syngenta’s current facilities at Jealott’s Hill are ‘outdated and unsuited to cutting-edge science'.

It said Syngenta needed a big new laboratory – and a science park to accommodate other firms that it works with. But it said Syngenta couldn’t build this without ‘cross-subsidy’ from a major housing development – and that its facility ‘would wither away and eventually close’.

The report said: “Without the proposed science park, Syngenta expects that its operation at Jealott’s Hill would gradually decline, and over time its work would likely be moved overseas.”

Syngenta argued that this meant Bracknell Forest Council should allow the development on the greenbelt to go ahead.

What Syngenta's hoped-for new laboratory would look like (Image: FDG)

Bracknell Forest Council agreed and allocated the site for 2,000 homes in a draft of its local plan. This sets out where it wants development to take place until 2037.

But government planning inspectors didn’t accept Syngenta’s arguments when reviewing the local plan – and told Bracknell Forest Council to strike the homes out.

The inspectors said there was ‘no realistic suggestion’ that collaboration between Syngenta and others would stop without a science park.

They said Syngenta could not ‘lightly’ leave its expensive specialised workforce and facilities in Bracknell Forest to start again out of the country. And they did not accept that the only way to fund development would be through building a 2,000-home village.

Bracknell Forest councillors voted to adopt a final version of the plan – without the 2,000 Jealott’s Hill homes included – at a meeting on Tuesday, March 19.

The authority said it would work with Syngenta to keep the firm in the borough.

Andrew Hunter, executive director for place, planning and regeneration, told the News: “The council continues to work positively with Syngenta and is keen to secure the long-term future of the site for the benefit of existing and future employees and the economic prosperity of the borough.”

Syngenta declined to say if it would stay in the borough and told the News it had nothing further to add to the arguments it made as the local plan was drawn up.