UPDATE
This application was refused by Basingstoke and Deane planners on 19 May 2022. A four-day appeal against this decision was held on 18-21 October 2002 and the Minister rejected the appeal on 15 December 2022.
See Inspector’s decision here -
https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ViewCase.aspx?caseid=3301468
See BDBC refusal notice here -Refusal – Dummer warehouse
The developers are now appealing against the refusal.
The developer behind the plans to build a large warehouse complex at Dummer has now come up with a new scheme after Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council refused permission for the earlier proposal.
The company, Newlands Developments Limited, had initially lodged an appeal against the Council decision, but subsequently withdrew the appeal and has now submitted new plans to build a similar warehousing and distribution centre on the land at Oakdown Farm on the A30 close to junction 7 of the M3. The new proposal is not fundamentally different to the original scheme and will still create all the environmental problems and traffic issues of the earlier proposal.
Dummer residents had been fiercely opposed to the original plans which were also opposed by all the local MPs. The proposal centred on plans to construct a vast warehouse with ancillary buildings, parking and movement areas for heavy goods vehicles and smaller distribution vehicles and would have required the felling of many mature trees. The new scheme now retains most of the trees, but proposes a more densely developed area of buildings and parking. All of which indicates the intention to use the site for a similar general warehousing and distribution complex as intended in the original application. Initial reports of it being used as “a warehouse for Lidl supermarkets” seems to have been merely a smoke screen.
Among the reasons for refusing the original application BDBC cited “the proposed development by virtue of the location and scale would be unsympathetic and detrimental to the landscape character and visual quality of the area.”
Local residents are still opposed to the new proposals as it is seen as simply a ploy to establish a quasi-industrial use on agricultural land which will then be extended to adjoining fields to create a vast warehousing complex between the M3 and the A30 as far as Dummer Lane and, perhaps, beyond to opposite the Wheatsheaf public house.
It is a totally inappropriate development for such an important site, described by Basingstoke councillors as “the Gateway to Basingstoke” and will further entrench the highly negative view that people have of Basingstoke generally.
If you have views about this application submit your comments to BDBC before 20 April directly on the BDBC site or by email to – planning.comments@basingstoke.gov.uk
planning
See here for the full details of the application -
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