Public car park could be lost in housing plan

The car park is on the site of old engineering works

A public car park could be lost if plans to build 82 new homes on a contaminated brownfield site are approved.

Developer Markham and George Property Ltd wants to construct houses and flats at the Bridge Place car park off The Avenue, between Huntingdon and Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire.

Plans submitted to Huntingdonshire District Council show a mixture of homes for the site which includes old engineering factory buildings.

There is no provision for affordable housing within the plans and replacing the existing car park was deemed "not commercially viable" by the council.

The council had initially allocated the land for development for about 90 new homes alongside the re-provision of the public car park.

However, planning documents said the district council had confirmed to the developer that it no longer wanted to have the car park re-provided, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The documents said it was "not commercially viable to replace the car park, because its use is exceptionally minimal and easily absorbed within existing capacity".

The developer also confirmed no affordable homes were proposed at the development.

The plans said this was due to the "significant costs associated with remediating" the "contaminated" site.

It said: "The applicant recognises that as part-owner of the site the council will inevitably come under pressure to deliver a percentage of affordable housing either on-site or off-site by way of a financial contribution.

"However, all the evidence demonstrates that neither can be achieved.

"Therefore, the priority for the council must be to enable the site to come forward so it can deliver the important benefits that remediation of a brownfield site and housing deliver."

The developer also said it could not "offer any financial contributions to off-site services and facilities due to viability constraints".

However, it said the site would deliver "significant benefits" including "provision of a sustainable drainage system that delivers a betterment to the nearby floodplain" and employment opportunities through the building process and occupation of the new homes.