The planning papers for the Tuesday 10th September planning meeting have been published.
Swindon Borough Council officers have recommended REFUSAL for the Abbey Stadium and adjacent land development.
As your local Councillors we organised a public consultation for residents to view the outline plans. Local residents were broadly supportive, in particular of the principle of changing the land use from light industrial to residential and the improved stadium facility. However there were concerns at the amount of housing, which would lead to additional pressure on local infrastructure including roads and local schools.
This application has not addressed these concerns and therefore has lead to officers recommended REFUSAL.
We would like the developers to take note of these concerns and revise their application. If they can address these issues which are not major then they should have the confidence to return to the planning committee.
The developers have argued that they have had to reduce their contributions towards local infrastructure to cover the costs of including speedway in the stadium redevelopment. However the developers will have no choice as Swindon Borough Council have made it crystal clear (thanks to the excellent positive campaign organised by speedway fans (supported by local residents) that we would refuse any applications that does not safeguard both the short term and long term future of speedway in Swindon.
Cllr Justin Tomlinson, The developers need to take note. The principle of the application is not in question, but the details are. They must work with Swindon Borough Council to deliver an application that is acceptable to all, underlined by our firm commitment to support both the short term and long term future of speedway in Swindon.