If it is converted to brown belt then there would be no way in my opinion that the public enquiry could come back with negative results.

Come on give us some good news BAZZO44 wants to crack open a bottle of iron bru

Ok, the good news is that the council planners have re arranged another 18ha of land to give the enough land for the whole development by taking 9ha from curator and 9ha from somewhere else not sure.
This will now have to be ok'd by big Erics planning officers.
The hope is that the rejigging, will aid our application.
The bad news is that it is still expected to take about a year, but it strengthens our case and with the new locals petition it proves a spanner in the works and aids/speeds up our inquiry.
The evening was informative, pretty well attended but I have to say (and I don't understand all the technical stuff) I am no more certain that this will happen in time, but I am impressed by both those involved and the plans, but hey I am biased.

Firstly, thanks to all those that came this evening, we estimate maybe 100+ people in the room... it was packed anyway!

The planning policy team are now recommending to council that 51ha of land at Newmarket should be re-designated as employment zone for Distribution & Storage units (Bicon_cool.gif from the previous 33ha. They have decided to take 9ha from Cutsyke, Glasshoughton and put houses on this site instead, as they felt it not as suitable for storage units. The other addition 9ha has been given to Newmarket with a of what is most easily described as moving a few bits over to housing and other uses in other area and also the need to plan now (because of a delay in the LDF process) for a bit more space anyway!

THE GREAT NEWS is that current proposal for the distribution & storage units in the current application is just over 50ha, which means that the policy team think Newmarket is the best possible site to deliver the major part of the legally required 95ha and it means that the units current planned in this application are covered by this proposal to to take this amount of space out of Green Belt. This might seem small and technical but it is huge and a huge indication from the council about this site. They are putting two fingers up to Mr Pickles!

Before you ask, no, it not guaranteed that the LDF will be passed by government but if before it was highly likely, it now looks extremely likely and they just can't say we don't like that site, they have to find a better one and recommend Wakefield use that... the good news is that, there does not appear to be one! The SoS have made a rather odd situation for themselves, it is they who told Wakefield to provide more space for warehousing but have called in an application on a site that the planning policy team (and they are the real experts) are even more heavily backing as the most suitable site. This my friends is called.... joined up government... NOT!

It also does somewhat appear to throw a rather large spanner in the current public inquiry as well. The planning inspector can not ignore the fact that another independent public inquiry is recommending this be used and they are holding another public inquiry to decide if this land can be used... if you know what I mean! Because this is a fairly unique set of circumstances we don't know what will happen! However, while this makes planning permission for the development, including the ground ever more likely, it does not speed things up (but you never know) and might even slow them down a bit (only a few months though). Sorry! To be fair that boat sailed on the 13th Dec.

So what happens next! We send the Statements of Support in to the the planning inspector and recommend he sends the application back to Wakefield without holding an inquiry (which he can do if he wishes) but we think that unlikely! We think some sort of inquiry will happen but how and when we don't know, or he holds this up until March 2012 (or sooner) for the LDf to be ratified, if it is a PI is not required and everyone is happy. We just don't know!

Right bed, up early to drive to Stowmarket in the morning!

Is there any reason why they didn't do this before the SoS decison so it could have formed part of the process?

The report to council is here BTW... if you can't sleep!
Also, in other news, the Ossett Traveller site has been dropped and not replaced (as yet) and it got more that 10 times the complaints Newmarket did!

The housing from Thornes Park has also been dropped form the LDF.

Some people are happy, some are sad!

Yes, the timeframe! The Site Specific LDF is on a set time-line until it goes to the SoS office in March and even then it has to stick to a 'target' programme. So the call-in has meant the LDF process continued and now appears to be overtaking the planning application!

Can you see now why we thought the SoS would hand it back and not call it in! They are backing themselves into a corner...which could have been avoided!

IA - thought you'd gone to bed or are you typing in your sleep?

Eric Pickles has always been a disgusting pig of a man and I was in no way suprised when he called it in. He had a Tory MP in his ear and was dealing with a non Tory council. And he's not even the worst of this shower of shiite we have in power now

To add something to the mix, all three of Stanley and Outwood East Councillors came along tonight and Simon Wilson, the Conservative (the other two are Labour) said that not only had the Wakefield Conservative group lobbied Eric Pickles before, when they called it in, they wrote again and told him that he was making a huge error and that they fully supported the application and it should have been handed back to Wakefield!

No Don't hold back let it all out

The more and more you look at the reasons behind it being called in the more and more it points to one person.It does seem to be a decision taken on a personal level. Maybe the Danny Lockwood article yesterday is a pointer as to why.

So let me get this right. The land that Castleford had earmarked for their new stadium at Glasshoughton has been redesignated for housing?