Car park flats plan meets opposition in Milton Keynes

The plan to create a new horseshoe-shaped development of 91 flats in a business park in the Linford Wood area of Stantonbury was revealed at a meeting on Monday.

Developers want to make use of the huge car park next to the Centric MK building in Capital Drive.

Centric MK is itself being converted into a block of more than 170 new homes.

Planning consultants told a meeting of Milton Keynes Council’s development review forum on Monday that they believe the scheme would help give the area a more residential feel.

The area is earmarked for housing in the Plan:MK local plan, the meeting heard.

The development review forum gives developers the chance to air plans before official planning applications are lodged with the council so they can get some local feedback.

Cllr Graham Davison, who chairs Stantonbury Parish Council, was not happy that the block would be more than 15 metres tall, when the area’s neighbourhood plan opposes such developments.

“That’s not acceptable to us, to be frank,” said Cllr Davison who said the build-to-rent flats would “provide a facade of high-rise buildings” close to the ancient wood at Linford.

He added: “I don’t see that your design, frankly, addresses many of the points that we put forward in our neighbourhood plan and we would really like you to reconsider some of the things that you’re proposing.”

Aaron Henecke, of planning consultancy Hybrid Planning and Development, said they are aware of the neighbourhood plan but feel that it offers an opportunity to “push the boundaries a bit.”

He added that if traditional housing was built near Centric MK it would itself be dwarfed.

He also sees the scheme as “something quite unique and interesting” which would be a marker in the landscape for visitors travelling to Milton Keynes.

But Mr Henecke added that they would take Cllr Davison’s comments and consider them further before submitting the planning application at about Christmas time.

Cllr Linda Morgan, the vice-chairman of Stantonbury Parish Council warned the developers to consider major traffic problems in the area where “every road is covered in cars”.

She also said local GP surgeries are “totally overloaded” adding: “It’s a desperate situation at the doctors’.”

She was told that the local NHS would be able to comment on the plans.