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LAND
BANK INVESTMENT AT BOW BRICKHILL
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On October 13th
2004 Milton Keynes Council agreed to an Article 4 Direction
for a meadow in Bow Brickhill which was split into many plots and
sold for land banking investment.
Milton Keynes Council commented:
"Milton Keynes Council is aware that a
plot of land immediately to the south of Bow Brickhill is
currently being marketed as a potential development area. The site
is an area of some 2.6 hectares and road access is shown from the
cul de sac of Downs View and also from London End Lane.
The site falls outside the defined limits of development of Bow
Brickhill village, within the open countryside and the Brickhills
Area of Attractive Landscape. Planning policy for this area is not
to allow new housing unless it is essential for farming, forestry
or countryside recreation." |
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Land Registry has produced a
useful guide entitled "Land
banking schemes – buying land in England and Wales claimed or thought
to have development potential"
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The
Campaign for the Protection of Rural England launched a campaign against
landbanking and called for the Government to clamp down on the schemes -
.... more
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BBC
South covered the activities of European Land Sales - the
partnership which sold the plots for land banking in Bow Brickhill - on Monday 25th September 2006 - click here for more information
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European
Land Sales Partnership - sales techniques challenged in
Australia
22 November 2005 ... more
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THE SITE
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This is an aerial image
of Bow Brickhill. The meadow bought and split into plots and sold
for landbanking has been coloured here in
orange. A
footpath which runs through this meadow is coloured yellow. A
field gate to the meadow is shown coloured red. More
information about the supposed access routes to the meadow can be seen
in these photographs - click
here.
The meadow, which can actually only be accessed from a footpath at the end of London
End Lane or a field gate from Downs View, lies to the south of Station Road (Land
Registry reference BM286658). The pictures (click
here) are not taken from 'clever'
angles, they show the reality.
Note in particular the photograph of the field gate access from Downs
View, a “right of way” for the owner of the “adjoining land situated to the south” of Downs
View for the “passage and repassage of farm vehicles and mechanically
propelled farm implements only and should not be used for the driving of
cattle or any other animals”.
A hand drawn map of the site showing the actual status of the access points
is shown here.
There is no public road access to the meadow, there has never been
any, none has been planned nor is it anticipated there will ever be
public road access to the meadow.
Bow Brickhill is surrounded on all sides by
open countryside and this meadow lies within an Area of Attractive Landscape. Protected species have been found
nearby. The
possibility of this site ever being developed is remote in the extreme.
This meadow is not included in the Local Plan, it has not been proposed
for development by the Local Plan Inspector and it has nothing to do
with any plans for the expansion of Milton Keynes.
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London End Lane is not a suitable access route for further
development:
On
13 February 2002 a planning application for land served by
London End Lane
- a development of five terraced houses - was considered
and rejected by Milton Keynes Council. Papers before the
Council at that meeting contained the following paragraphs:
“Senior Engineer, Highways Development Control recommends refusal on
the grounds that the roads serving this site are not suitable to
accommodate the additional vehicular and pedestrian traffic that the
proposed houses would generate, leading to the site are not suitable to
accommodation the additional vehicular and pedestrian usage generated by
the proposed houses. [sic] London End Lane
is in place too narrow to properly accommodate emergency or service
vehicles, there is no footway, verges, lighting or drainage. Forward
visibility at the junction with
Church Road
is hazardously sub-standard.”
“
London End Road
is very narrow and scales as approximately 2.2 metres minimum at the
entrance to the site increasing to approximately 3.0 meters towards the
existing houses at the junction with Church Road. The Council’s senior Highway Engineer has recommended that
planning permission be refused on the grounds that the roads serving this
site are not suitable to accommodate the additional vehicular and
pedestrian traffic that the proposed houses would generate and as such
would prejudice highway safety and convenience.”
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