250-home plan could breathe new life into former British American Tobacco factory near Corby
A plan to build 250 new houses on the site of a former tobacco factory near Corby is in its early stages.
A developer wants to bulldoze the large industrial buildings on the site, at Headway, Great Oakley to make way for housing.
The British American Tobacco plant has been shuttered since it closed four years ago.
Now a partnership called Pontiac Estates LLP wants to build a large housing estate as well as play areas and green space. There is already an attenuation pond on the site.
Access would be from the existing gated entrance.
The factory was formerly used for processing tobacco for use in BAT products around the world.
Taking advantage of generous European subsidies designed to lure firms to Corby, the plant was opened in 1983, providing much-needed jobs for the town after the closure of the steelworks. It processed tobacco leaf for cigarette brands including Rothmans, Lucky Strike, Camel and Dunhill.
It closed in 2019 with the loss of 39 permanent staff.
It is already bounded on two sides by housing, and on the others by fields and Harper’s Brook.
No formal planning application has yet been submitted so only vague details are available, but the site owner has asked North Northamptonshire Council to consider whether an environmental impact assessment (EIA) would be needed, should it apply for planning permission to build 250 homes on the site.
EIAs consider what the impact of major developments would have on the local area, and compel builders to include mitigation in their plans. Developers often don’t like EIAs because they can be costly to produce and can result in them having to pay to offset any environmental repercussions of the build.
The developer has contracted an agent to produce a 38-page document, submitted to planners at NNC, to explain why they do not believe an EIA is necessary for their scheme.
The 23-acre site was marketed with the benefit of ‘positive pre app’ for housing, which means that the local planning authority has indicated that residential development is considered an acceptable use for the site before any formal planning application is submitted.
The site was recently sold to partnership called Pontiac Estates LLP, which is owned by a series of offshore shell companies based in places including Hong Kong, British Virgin Isles, Singapore, Switzerland, Malaysia, China and the United States.
Under new legislation, those parties with a significant beneficial interest in an LLP should declare their information publicly on Companies House. There are currently no beneficial owners of Pontiac Estates listed – but the major shareholder until February this year was a London-based brownfield land developer named Square Bay Limited.
Square Bay specialises in purchasing sites on behalf of funders, gaining planning permission, then selling on the sites to housebuilders.
A £4.47m mortgage from Bangkok Bank was taken out on the Great Oakley site by Pontiac in March.
It’s not the first site in Corby to be owned by offshore developers. In January we told you how some of Corby’s prime real estate was owned by investors as diverse as the Rothschilds, a key Donald Trump advisor and Samantha Cameron’s millionaire brother.