Sunderland Council has recommended that a 54.3-acre industrial park being developed by the Town End Farm Partnership be refused at planning committee.
Hedley Planning submitted an application in September 2016 on behalf of TEFP for land in the proposed International Advanced Manufacturing Park boundary, north of the Nissan plant and adjacent to the A19.
Plans were for 990,000 sq ft of manufacturing space and 100,000 sq ft of commercial space and included two new factories for suppliers of the Nissan plant to assist in the delivery of components for the new Qashqai and X-Trail cars being manufactured there.
However, the council said the application should be refused because the proposed development is premature when considered alongside the masterplan for the International Advanced Manufacturing Park.
TEFP said, however, that neither the Area Action Plan nor the Development Consent Order for the IAMP had been adopted, nor was there any guarantee of delivery, while the application was made with a confirmed occupier on board, along with funding and a development plan.
It said that unless councillors overturn the recommendation to refuse at the planning committee meeting on 25 April, committed tier 1 occupiers would have to revise plans for proposed new manufacturing sites because requirements needed to be fulfilled by 2018.
TEFP director Peter Razaq said: “Over the past nine months Town End Farm and our consultancy team have worked tirelessly with Sunderland City Council, Highways England and other government agencies to deliver Wear Point 55. The council’s proposed recommendation to refuse the application is a huge disappointment to us.
“Having undertaken detailed highways and infrastructure surveys, we understood that the road network could support an increase in traffic, but now we have been informed that our s106 contribution would require a new revised road layout, reducing the available build space, making it unviable to deliver the proposed units as they would not no longer meet our or other tier 1 suppliers’ requirements.”
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