A local councillor has called on a developer to withdraw their planning appeal over the controversial Salden Chase application.
This development, if approved, would see 1,855 new homes be built on land between Bletchley and Newton Longville.
It has caused friction amongst councillors and residents because it mainly sits across the border in Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC)’s area, and not Milton Keynes Council's.
Councillors on Milton Keynes Council refused the initial planning application on the Milton Keynes side of the border due to traffic and road design issues. However, councillors in Buckinghamshire have approved the plans, making the Milton Keynes objection the last thing stopping the development from getting the go-ahead.
The developer had appealed to the planning inspector, and submitted over 1400 new pages of evidence, but the hearing has since been postponed until February.
And now Cllr Elaine Wales (Lab, Bletchley Park) has called on the developers to completely withdraw the appeal on the basis that they have allegedly misled the inspector over the evidence.
Officers in the council's planning team are said to have discovered that the developer has made "significant changes" to the road and roundabout designs, and has not declared them as vastly different to those rejected by the council committee.
The council now believes that the inspector should throw out the appeal so that a new application can be submitted.
Cllr Wales said: “Salden Chase would be a blot on the edge of Milton Keynes. I’ve always opposed it and was happy when Milton Keynes Council stopped it, despite Bucks Conservatives pushing for it and approving it.
“Now we find out that the developer is playing games and it looks like they are not being upfront with their evidence in the appeal. It looks like they’d try any tactic to get their way. Our planning team at MKC have done a good job in spotting them trying to slip something through in a mountain of paperwork.
“I’m now calling for the appeal to be withdrawn or kicked out. A new application should be submitted and we can make our points again that Buckinghamshire Conservatives should not be dumping their housing on Milton Keynes border.”
Additional reporting by David Tooley - Local Democracy Reporter
