Harborough Local Plan 2011-2031: Submission
14 February 2018: Follow-up Representation by Gazeley

This Representation and Objection:
Gazeley, the owner of Magna Park, submitted its representation on Harborough District Council's (the Council) Proposed Submission Local Plan on 17 November 2017, the deadline for representations.
Though broadly supportive of the Plan, Gazeley requested a minor change to GD3 to make it consistent with BE2 and more substantial changes to strengthen BE2, including a request that BE2 be made sound by the inclusion of site allocations on the Policies Map. The Council has proposed the minor change to GD3, but is proposing no substantial changes to BE2.
Gazeley, therefore, while supporting the principle of BE2, objects to the absence of site allocations in the Policies Map.
BE2 seeks up to 700,000 sq m of strategic distribution floorspace where it will form an extension of, or be on a site adjoining, Magna Park but makes no site allocations. The Council reasons that none is needed because the policy is 'criteria based' and there are also precedents for the approach elsewhere in the Submission Plan. Gazeley, however, disagree and object on the basis that BE2 is unsound as drafted because it is incapable of delivery and therefore is not effective.
For the Local Plan to be sound - positively prepared in response to the strategy for meeting the evidenced need and effective in being deliverable over the plan period - the site allocations for BE2 are essential.
Gazeley's Rationale for a Late Objection
Gazeley has submitted two planning applications to extend Magna Park, both EIA developments. The first, for 100,944 sq m strategic distribution space on a 56 ha site to the north west of and adjoining Magna Park was permitted in October 2016 (the First Application). The second (the Second Application) was refused following a call-in by the council of the decision of the council's planning committee to grant planning permission on 23 November, shortly after the deadline for the representations on the proposed submission plan.
The Second Application was in two parcels, both of which - as sought by BE2 - extend Magna Park: the Zone 1 parcel was for 232 ha in total (including the site of the permitted 56 ha scheme forms part) to add a further 318,956 sq m of strategic distribution floorspace plus a Logistics Institute of Technology (4,300 sq m plus playing fields), Innovation Centre (2,325 sq m), HQ for a local high tech firm (7,000 sq m), Local Heritage Centre, 70 ha Country Park and a further 33 ha of green infrastructure, SUDS etc; and the Zone 2 parcel was for a 7 ha site (which also extends Magna Park and benefits from an existing consent) for an HGV park, driver training centre and road-based railfreight shuttle and terminal to serve Magna Park's firms who already account for 16% of all trips into and out of the Daventry International Railfreight terminal.
As of 17 November, Gazeley had received the officers' report to planning committee on the Second Application, and it recommended that planning permission be granted. No professional officer in the Council or for a statutory consultee objected to the scheme, the Council's officers' considered the balance of economic, social and environmental benefits to outweigh the limited residual harm that remained, in no case significant.
Another planning application, by db symmetry for 279,708 sq m of strategic distribution space on a site opposite to Magna Park, was also considered by the 23 November 2017 planning application, and it too benefited from a recommendation to approve and it too was granted. However, the db


symmetry planning application was not called in for redetermination by the Council. The issue of the planning permission for the db symmetry application is subject to confirmation from the Secretary of State as to whether he will call-in the application for his determination and completion of the S106 agreement.
Gazeley did not object to the absence of site allocations for BE2 in time for the 17 November 2017 date for representations, but requested that they be made. At that point, given the officers' report's recommendation to grant planning permission for both the Second Application and the db symmetry application, the expectation was that the resolution to grant the two permissions on 23 November 2017 would give effect to Gazeley's request.
While the Second Application satisfied the location, quantum and criteria provisions of policy BE2, BE2 itself could have little weight in the planning determination, although the evidence base for BE2 carried very significant weight as it continues to do. Extensions to existing sites in areas of opportunity (of which Lutterworth is one) are the first preference in the evidence base for meeting the needs of the logistics industry in the county for a minimum of 608,000 sq m of additional road-based strategic distribution floorspace; and the grant of the First Application established the acceptability of the principle of the principle of extending Magna Park to contribute to that need, notwithstanding the conflict with Core Strategy CS7h which precludes such expansion.
It is difficult to see how BE2 could be implemented in the absence of allowing for the remainder of the need to be met on Gazeley's Second Application site. There are no other options that would extend or adjoin Magna Park and come close to the BE2 quantum. The green wedge adjoining the eastern boundary of Magna Park is safeguarded by the Submission Plan, although part of the green wedge was granted planning permission on appeal for 250 dwellings on lad adjoining the Lutterworth boundary (APP/F2415/W/16/3151978).
It is also the case that Magna Park sits within the countryside, and thus any expansion scheme capable of meeting the quantitative need promoted by BE2 - in the large scale distribution units the industry requires - could not but have significant landscape and other environmental effects that would require suitable and effective mitigation.
Finally, it is also the case that the SA for the Submission Plan (September 2017, Section 19, pages 166-170) assessed seven candidate strategic distribution sites, of which two cover the sites of the First and Second Applications and a third the db symmetry application, and did so in the context of a preference, all SA objectives considered, for the 'high growth' (700,000 sq m) scenario that BE2 promotes. The SA's assessment focused on the 'baseline conditions' for each site, highlighting where development might be more likely to generate significant effects but also noting that the individual development schemes could propose measures to tackle potential constraints and opportunities.
The SA concluded that there was little to distinguish between the sites at the high level at which the appraisal was conducted but that 'the ability to secure enhancements, highways access and transport modelling [would] need to be taken into consideration alongside the SA findings'. The SA also went on to conclude that the high growth (up to 700,000 sq m) scenario with focus on Magna Park was preferred (see Appendix G), but that BE2 should adopt a criteria-based approach 'to avoid prejudicing the treatment of pending applications, and the emerging Strategic Growth Plan for the HMA.'
In fact, of course, neither consideration is a reasonable basis for precluding site allocations. The SA has no role in development management, and the Strategic Growth Plan, now published, simply acknowledges the need for additional land for strategic distribution in the county and notes that Government's Midlands Engine Strategy (2017) includes what it calls the 'Magna Park Distribution Centre' as an economic growth area.


If BE2, most particularly the quantum of floorspace to be located where it will extend or adjoin Magna Park, is to be an effective policy, then BE2 also needs to be capable of implementation. As it stands, it is not and as a consequence BE2 is not sound in the terms of NPPF 182 bullet 3. It stands to reason that site allocations would resolve this soundness hurdle. SA Table 19.2 also provides an adequate basis for selecting those sites from the alternatives considered.
Gazeley therefore suggest that the better performing of the Table 19.2 sites, having regard to the BE2 quantum and location requirements and the need for consistency with the other policies of the Submission Local Plan (e.g., are not sited within the GD6 green wedge that adjoins Magna Park on the east), should be allocated. These are sites E/012OC/15 (First Application), E/010OC/15 (Second Application) and E/009OC/15 (db symmetry application).
As with any site allocation in a Local Plan, subsequent planning applications can be assessed in the usual way following due process. In this case, BE2 already establishes the principle that up to 700,000 sq m of additional strategic distribution floorspace should be accommodated on land that extends or adjoins Magna Park. The SA rejects a lower growth option for strategic distribution for the reasons it explains. Allocations, as Gazeley propose, would make BE2 sound, and would in no way predetermine planning applications that seek to develop the allocated sites. Instead, BE2 would do the job of it that the NPPF requires: providing a sound basis, and the certainty needed, for the market to respond to the opportunities otherwise positively promoted by BE2 to supply the industry with the floorspace it needs in an optimal location in line with the BE2 evidence base.