Posh nosh for Wood’s Mill ?
Last night saw a meeting of the Development Plan Select Committee, which amongst the various items on the agenda received a report from the consultants working on the Development Plan for the Wood’s Mill Area.
The presentation suggested four options, along with a preferred option combining parts of some of the others, which would see efforts been made to draw a ‘posh’ food shop, such as Marks and Spencer Food or Waitrose to part of the site. With the rest been given over to a mixture of use’s including leisure, residential and office space.
Although following discussion the preferred option was agreed with and recommended to the executive for approval, there was quite a lot of discussion on ‘option 4’ of the proposals which sought to develop a large section of the site for a leisure use such as a cinema or something similar.
However, as part of the report back, and following question from me and other members of the committee, the consultants are not recommending this option on the basis that from existing ‘research’ they feel we are unlikely to be able to attract a developer to do this. Meaning that local aspirations / expectations may be raised for something that cannot be delivered.
The proposals will now go for approval to the council’s executive, and then out to public consultation in January, where it will be interesting to see if local views match the recommendations of the consultants.