Wellingborough - Stanton Cross Sustainable Urban Extension

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The Borough Council of Wellingborough is progressing the development of a 360 hectare Sustainable Urban Extension site. The development represents a £500 million investment, anticipated to create between six and seven thousand local jobs and 200 construction jobs. Investment in infrastructure totals £80 million and includes a new railway station and a new 1000 space car park. The Council started planning the development in 2000, with development anticipated to commence in 2014 and site completion in 2034 depending on market conditions.

Each major application will have specific requirements and because of the nature and size of Sustainable Urban Extensions (for example) they take time to pull together and are subject to a great deal of change and alteration i.e. renegotiating a s106 agreement. This can take time particularly gathering evidence on viability etc.

The developer has been particularly keen to submit reserved matters applications dealing with different phases of this major development site for them to be consulted on but then requests the applications are put on hold and not decided on within the 13 week timeframe. This is to inform the developers negotiating and own decision making, for example it allows them to continue their negotiations with land owners and importantly choose the best economic circumstances to obtain approval and start the development. This is critical when considering the triggers for major investments in infrastructure. In the case of Stanton Cross there are three crossings of the East Midlands Main line and Network Rail require a long lead time for this work, the Route four bridge has been given a time slot of August Bank Holiday weekend 2014. All the permissions etc. will need to be in place to coincide with that date.