I NOTE the letter featured in the Standard ‘Lord’s got some explaining to do’.

Over the last 18 months Bathurst Development Limited (BDL) has carried out extensive public consultation on its proposal for a high quality residential development on the land next to Chesterton.

The consultation remains ongoing and indeed there will be a further event next month.

We are committed to this process and the feedback received has helped inform our proposals.

In relation to the timing of an outline planning application, the suggestion appears to be that by submitting it at the end of this year, or early next year, BDL are effectively ‘jumping the gun’; seeking to obtain a permission ahead of the Local Plan.

This is not the case.

Our planning strategy has always been to work with the local community and CDC to bring these proposals forward alongside the emerging Local Plan. Of the upmost importance in this regard is that the Local Plan requires the proposals to be completed by 2031, the end of the plan period.

For that programme to be achieved, an outline planning application will need to be submitted by the end of this year or in early 2016.

It is important for your readers to know that the act of submitting an outline planning application is not the end of the planning process, it is merely one part of an ongoing process.

There will be a considerable amount of additional work to be undertaken even once the planning application is submitted, including further public consultation.

Experience of projects of this scale elsewhere indicates that all of this can take many months, if not, more than a year.

Rather than circumventing the Local Plan therefore, this approach will ensure that all of the relevant technical information accompanying the application will be available to the Local Plan Inspector when the examination takes place, scheduled for late 2016, as well as the other participants in the examination including your readers should they wish to take part.

EARL BATHURST

Cirencester