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It was the Planning Committee at South Cambs today and item number 2 was the Mitre proposal for the Bishop’s site.
There has been considerable community opposition to the proposal and the community was well represented by speakers at the committee. Local resident and windmill owner Steve Temple was followed by Brian Ing on behalf of the Parish Council and then district councillors Neil Davies and Jonathan Chatfield. The third district councillor, Edd Stonham, sent an input by email.
All argued strenuously that the proposal be rejected on the grounds of:
- an inappropriate design
- inadequate parking provision
- inadequate provision of social housing
- incompatibility with the recently approved Local Plan
- considerable local opposition.
The mood of the meeting appeared to be moving towards rejection until the idea of running it by a newly constituted design review panel was suggested. This was approved (by about 10 votes to 4) and will result in the proposal coming back to the Committee probably in May.
This is is not terribly good news but it’s not totally bad either. We now need to marshal our arguments for the panel which, by the way, is new, has never met, has no terms of reference and not even any members!
The Parish Council will continue to fight this development, not development on this site per se, just this particular proposal, and to support it in this it would be useful if:
- as many people as possible could reaffirm their opposition to the Mitre proposal by commenting to this post; and
- local architects/town planners could come forward to help the Council to build its case.
Click here to go to the file for the Mitre application on South Cambs’ web-site.
I agree and oppose Mitres proposal
I oppose the Mitre proposal in its entirety – I think it would be extremely negative for the village for the reasons summarised in the post above. The recently approved Local Plan has the support of the village’s residents and is by far the most sensible approach for development in the village to take. It would be totally unacceptable for the opinions of the vast majority (if not all) of the residents of the local area to be ignored by people who have no close involvement with the village and who will not be affected by the development.
Hi David – apologies that I couldn’t make it along to the meeting today. I did oppose the original plans on the grounds that you mention above. Please keep me informed of progress. It’s good that the decision has been deferred – giving more time to put forward additional arguments against. The monolith proposed is wrong for the area at so many different levels.
I congratulate the speakers representing the community and confirm my opposition to the Mitre proposal for the reasons outlined in the meeting and my previous letter. Agree it would be good to have some expert architectural recommendations to bolster our argument.
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I am interested to see that the parish council are not apposed to the development of this site, but do not consider this proposal to be appropriate. I have an idea for this site, and for the old station building that I believe would be a tremendous asset to Histon and Impington. This may not be the best place to discuss my idea, but I would be happy to discuss it with anyone who would like to know more. Please feel free to contact me so we can explore options.