Today it was revealed that a report from an independent Government planning inspector is recommending that the plans for Northstowe be revised upwards from 8,000 to 10,000 homes. As part of this revision the report also recommends that the requirement to create a new country park at Northstowe should be dropped.

This comes at a time when the our country park is already under threat of closure. It's hard to understand the logic of what's going on in this area at the moment: we're flooding the area with new homes and simultaneously not only failing to create new recreation space to match but threatening the space we already have.

You can find the full text of the inspectors' statement here. The key section reads:

The Council's policy for Strategic Open Space has no sound evidence base and is to be deleted from the Development Control Policies DPD. There will be no requirement to provide any country parks. As a result, the Strategic Open Space requirement resulting from the Northstowe development will have to be subject to negotiation based upon factors including the existing Strategic Open Space provision accessible to future Northstowe residents, the work on the Master Plan and considerations of economic viability.

Written: 28/02/07

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