Beds villages expect to be safe from greenfield development

Posted on February 21, 2006

South Bedfordshire villages including Heath and Reach, Hockliffe, Stanbridge and Eaton Bray look set to escape major housebuilding over the next 15 years.

While Leighton-Linslade is officially a growth location in the Milton Keynes Sub-regional Strategy, these proposals only apply to the urban areas of Leighton Buzzard and Linslade.

South Beds District Council will be considering the extent of future housing estates and best directions for growth, and will set the boundaries after a green belt review of the town. It appears inevitable that Leighton-Linslade will have to balloon out into the countryside somewhere in the next few years.

But the surrounding villages are not part of the growth location, and will be subject instead to the draft East of England Plan, which will operate up to 2021.

This currently sets out a policy of restricting development in villages to that arising from local needs only, and of an appropriate scale and nature symapthetic to local character.

This policy is one of a number of points due to be discussed at the Examination in Public (EiP) on the draft East of England Plan at Letchworth this Thursday.

Adrian Cannard, Strategy and Implementation Manager for the East of England Regional Assembly, told the LBO this week: "The Assembly will be putting a case before the independent panel that development in the villages of South Bedfordshire District, in total, should be less than 80 dwellings a year over the Plan period.

"Given existing commitments, the majority of this is likely to be accommodated through the re-use of redundant land and buildings, and it is unlilely that any 'greenfield' development will be required."

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 21 February 2006