Planning decision on big Corby warehouse park adjourned

A decision about whether to give the go ahead to a mega logistics park on the edge of Corby has been pushed back a week after the council’s planning officers submitted new information at the eleventh hour.

The hundreds of objectors to Mulberry development’s warehouse park at the Cowthick plantation will now have to wait until next Monday (June 29) to find out the fate of the greenfield land off the A43 near Stanion.

In an unusual move the council’s monitoring officer Paul Goult told the virtual planning meeting that the application should not be discussed at all and instead deferred because making a decision last night would have been unfair and unsafe.

He said: “Following the receipt of a significant amount of additional information today from our colleagues in planning we have decided to take the view that it would be unfair to the committee to consider the application this evening and determine the application until this significant amount of new material has been properly considered by the members and the speakers.

“The additional information was sent out this afternoon however it is quite substantial and obviously significant. Therefore for the committee to consider that in the timescale allowed would I believe as monitoring officer for the council be unfair and unsafe."

The officer apologised on behalf of officers but said given the significance of the application and the level of public interest it should be given more time so that planning committee members could come back next week armed with questions.

Despite the new information, new speakers will not be allowed at next week’s meeting. The new information has not as yet been put in the public domain or lodged on the council’s website however it has been seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service and contains the objections in full from East Northamptonshire Council as well as a report from the North Northamptonshire Joint Planning unit which is against the plan.

Planning officers have recommended approval despite the scheme being outside Corby’s own local plan and the guiding masterplan for the area.

Several nearby parish councils have also put in strong objections to the scheme which if approved would see 4.3m sq ft of new employment space built on the 1.6km site which sits opposite the Holiday Inn and runs from Cowthick Plantation near Stanion to the landfill site on the edge of Weldon.

The application says several thousand jobs will be created by the scheme.

This was the first public meeting of Corby Council since March.