Tuesday, September 8, 2009
RACING INDUSTRY CONTINUES FIGHT TO STOP NEWMARKET DEVELOPMENT
Commenting on the ongoing battle to safeguard the future of Newmarket as the capital of the European racing and breeding industry, Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony said;
“As it stands at the moment the Local Development Framework (LDF) recommending the building of 1,200 – 1,400 in Newmarket, of which 1,200 have been earmarked for Lord Derby’s Hatchfield Farm site on the Fordham Road, has been approved by Forest Heath District Council and was submitted to the Secretary of State on Friday 28th August. The LDF will now be the subject of a public examination which is most likely to take place in January or February next year.
FHDC has consistently ignored the views of the racing industry which were supported by the findings of an independent report by planning consultants Barton Wilmore which highlighted the potentially disastrous impact of the proposed Hatchfield Farm development on the viability of Newmarket as a training centre. FHDC has similarly disregarded the views of our long standing local MP Richard Spring who has joined the racing industry in publicly voicing his opposition to this proposed development. The racing industry will be making representations to the examiner in which the proposal to develop Hatchfield Farm into a housing estate of 1,200 houses will be vigorously and unanimously opposed by all of the racing industry bodies which were signatories to the Barton Wilmore report.
It is a measure of the task facing the town of Newmarket that it was only after the elected officials of FHDC had pushed through this LDF that anyone from FHDC agreed to any discussion at all. After a meeting between two senior Conservative councillors and Tattersalls it remains abundantly clear that the future of Newmarket as a horseracing centre of global importance is very much at stake. The performance of FHDC to date is deeply concerning, but the collective struggle to prevail upon elected officials to act with a sense of civic responsibility will continue. We hope that FHDC will now, at this perilously late stage, work with the racing industry to reverse the damaging recommendations for Hatchfield Farm contained in the LDF.”
For old articles (from 1st March 2000) go to the Newslink
Archive
|
