Lane residents fight light industry plan

Posted on March 2, 2006

There's something stirring at the end of a private country lane in Eaton Bray and it's got the neighbours hopping mad.

The owners of a derelict chicken shed want to open it up as a small factory or warehouse.

But people living in the executive-style detached homes in The Comp are planning to fight the scheme which they say would shatter the peace, bring increased traffic along the no-through road they have to maintain and set a dangerous precedent for other rural areas.

The first round of the battle was played out at February's parish council meeting when 18 residents handed over protest letters venting their opposition to the plan.

The concrete agricultural building sits at the end of The Comp, an unadopted road and bridleway, next to the shattered remains of glasshouses. Horses graze in paddocks at the rear of the isolated site and a crossroads of well-used public footpaths leading to Totternhoe Knolls and the village backwater are just a few feet away.

The owners have applied to South Beds Council for planning permission to change the use from an agricultural building to business or storage and distribution use. The scheme includes 17 parking spaces which, residents fear, indicates the high volume of traffic expected to visit the site.

They told the parish council that the single track road, which they had to pay for, had no footpath, was used by schoolchildren, and abuts a dangerous blind bend on the busy Market Square, High Street junction.

The parish council has backed their objections, saying that the development would be inappropriate in the location, would lead to excessive traffic down the lane, and had environmental ramifications.

South Beds Council spokeswoman Clair Thomas, said the change of use would enable the building to be used for light industry, small scale manufacturing or warehouse storage.

She said the plan was still at the consultation stage and would be decided by the authority's planning committee in the coming months.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 28 February 2006