Lakeside park gets the green light (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Lakeside park gets the green light

PROPOSALS for a massive leisure area at Claydon Pike, midway between Fairford and Lechlade, has won the support of Cotswold councillors.

The district council's planning committee last week voted 11 - 2 to permit the 638-acre development, subject to the satisfactory completion of a detailed legal agreement.

Three main components of the proposals, sited in the eastern section of the Cotswold Water Park, are the provision of "a lakeside retreat" in the shape of 160 detached holiday lodges, a "low-key" 180-acre country park incorporating a new and permanent base for the Bowmoor Sailing Club, and a 100-bedroom hotel on the shore of Bowmoor Lake.

Principal planner Marcus Kitchen told members that in his view, and subject to completion of a legal agreement, the scheme was "worthy of support."

And whilst it had originally been intended to phase the development over a 20-year period, this had now been cut by half.

"All being well the development could come on tap in two or three years and be completed in six or seven," he said.

He reminded members the scheme had initially been put forward six years ago.

In the intervening years the applicants, Hanson, had done a great deal to meet early objections to the scheme.

The sailing club, he said, would have to leave Bowmoor Lake and it was now suggested it should be re-located to another lake in the country park area of the site, Coln Park Lake.

There it would be provided with a new access from the A417, plus a new clubhouse headquarters.

There would also be public access to the area, he said, with the provision of a walk round the lake edge.

Mr Kitchen confirmed that gravel extraction on the site was continuing and would still be in progress on one part while development was going ahead on another.

More than a dozen members of the public attended the meeting, some as spokesmen.

One, Stewart Lever, whose home is adjacent to the site, claimed there were more than 900 local individuals who felt as he did, that the scheme should be opposed.

Wildlife on the site would inevitably be disturbed, there would be less public access, and increased danger and traffic congestion on the A417 past the site.

Mr Lever said English Nature had heard nothing from the applicants for two-and-a-half years, "not a squeak," which showed a lack of commitment and raised doubts about future management.

He said a completely new application was needed, adding: "This one is as dead as the Dodo, as doomed as the Dome."

The applicants, he claimed, had no real interest and it was felt by many people that they intended eventually to sell the site on.

Cllr Hazel Jones said Kempsford parish council had worries about the site being beneath the flight path to RAF Fairford, and the wildlife and flowers on the site.

It also felt there should be better facilities for the public.

Lechlade Town Council spokesman Richard Clark said it felt public access should be maximised, that a bathing beach should be built at Thornhill Lake, and that shopping facilities should not be provided within the hotel.

Cllr Clark added that Lechlade would also like to see the provision of a mini-bus service between the hotel, Fairford and Lechlade to cut car use.

Philip Duncan, for Hanson, said the 173-acre Coln Park Lake would be gifted to the sailing club, and in addition a £300,000 fund would be set up which CDC could spend how it wished on the site.

"We are going to bring something special to the water park," he said. "We are using one of the world's top designers on the lodges and he will bring something the water park has not yet seen."

The committee agreed that negotiations should continue in a bid to find a safe solution to having two site accesses on to the A417, preferably without the construction of roundabouts.