Success for Campaign against proposed New Town at Dunsfold Park

Following SDPNT’s representations at the public hearing in March on the draft South East Plan the Government Inspectors have supported the campaign’s view that Dunsfold Park is not a suitable location for a major housing development.

Barry Myers, Chairman of SDPNT, said -   

“The South East England Regional Assembly [SEERA] and the Independent Inspectors have considered at great length, with the benefit of leading planning expertise, the strategy for the location of new housing in the South East. Despite all the representations made by Dunsfold Park Ltd both SEERA and the Inspectors have firmly rejected their proposals for a new settlement. 

We trust that the Government will accept the Inspectors opposition to a new settlement and that Dunsfold Park Ltd will not pursue their wholly inappropriate proposal, which simply has no meaningful support.”

Local MP Jeremy Hunt has commented –

“Although we are all concerned about the shortage of affordable housing for young people, it is very significant that the inspectors recognised the impact such a large development would have on the character of the area. This is doubly the case when neither infrastructure nor plans for new infrastructure are in place.”

Despite the favourable Inspectors Report the SDPNT campaign will continue to pursue vigorously the lead of local campaign supporter Sir Trevor Nunn who said –

 “I call on existing local communities to unite and urge local and national Government to stop this utterly insensitive invasive scheme from going any further.”

Extract from the Inspectors Report on the draft South East Plan

“Dunsfold Park

26.86 The case for strategic-scale development at Dunsfold Park was made at the EiP. This was broadly described as a proposal for a sustainable development of a cluster of rural settlements, including large-scale mixed-use development on the Dunsfold Aerodrome site and new transport links to Cranleigh. Live-work units, a substantial element of affordable housing provision for local people and accommodation for over-50s are amongst the components that would, it was argued, provide a sustainable solution to housing requirements in this part of the region and make best use of a major brownfield site. We share the view of a number of participants that elements of the proposal are innovative and worthy of application more generally. Nonetheless, in our view the proposal for about 2,500 dwellings and 2,000 jobs at Dunsfold Park would seriously unbalance the regional strategy and it would be likely to remain unsustainable. The area is relatively remote from service centres, public transport accessibility and the local road network would not be capable of being improved to an appropriate level, and it would be difficult to secure the level of self-containment that might overcome these disadvantages. Accordingly, we would not recommend the scale of development proposed at this location.”

End