To bring you all up to date this is what I have been up on the planning application so far:

1. I have called in the planning application. This means it won’t be approved by officers under delegated authority. Instead, it will go in front of the full planning committee which gives us a greater opportunity to influence things. The planning committee is made up of elected councillors like myself.
2. I have discussed this application with the senior planning officer and Chief Exec at West Suffolk Council.
3. I have a meeting with Matt Hancock on the 3rd Feb.
4. I am meeting with the prison governor on the 4th Feb.
5. I am briefing the Stradishall Parish council on the 26th Jan.
6. I briefed the Hundon Parish council tonight and was able to raise a number of issues.
7. I spoke to the Chairman of the planning committee today requesting additional time to speak at the planning meeting. Time is strictly controlled to 3 minutes which I don’t believe is sufficient.
8. Concerned the additional demand on local services, police, NHS etc will not be funded.
9. Given a great deal of the planning documents are not in the public domain, for security reasons, I requested and now have all the restricted documents. Whilst I must maintain security I wanted to see all the documents so that I can comment sensibly when asked about the plans.

My concerns so far, but not limited to, are:

A. Proposed carpark locations. Impact of shift workers, security lights, and who uses the carpark. Lose of amenity land.

B. The condition of the ring road and the impact of their increased use post expansion.

C. Increased traffic joining the main road particularly by the bends near Sterling House. There have been a number of accidents there.