If SnOasis is a commercial non starter, what, if anything, should be built on the site instead? Time for a proper local debate among the people that are affected by it, not remote developers interested only in making money and council officials who are only interested in glorifying their own dull CV's.
If the site had never got planning permission, I would have argued for it being left as the first class wildlife site that it now is, enhanced with proper facilities for the public to use it. Maybe that's still possible, but planning permission makes the site valuable and its difficult to see how cash strapped wildlife organisations could come up with the necessary money to buy it. Maybe Mid Suffolk District Council - whose patronage and encouragement drove the barmy SnOasis dream onward - should stump up the cash!
Maybe it should be used for landfill as was always envisaged and returned to farmland - after all about 1/3rd of the site is just that - farmland that has never been touched by quarrying. Suffolk County Council is always bleating that we are running out of landfill sites, so why not let Viridor just fill it up as they are doing with much of the rest of the site not owned by Onslow Suffolk.
Or there may be several commercial ideas that can provide a good return on investment but be a low impact on local people and the environment. The other day I visited a golf and apartment complex in Portugal in a similar valley. Environmentally the site was very diverse, pleasant to look at and tastefully done with low rise/ low density apartments and a small hotel.
Equally, a low density, high tech business park set among the current lakes and trees like the one in Sophia Antipolis in the South of France would be a low impact on locals, retain much of the wildlife and make money for the developer. Quite why low impact schemes like this were not pursued and one as crazy as SnOasis taken forward we maybe will never know. According to the developer, Godfrey Spanner, Snoasis is what Mid Suffolk Distract Council wanted - maybe it's what one or two officials wanted to see on their CV's.
Anyway, what do you think should be built on the site? If it's a snowdome that you want - let's hope you have about half a billion pounds to flush away, because for sure the current developer doesn't have it!
Posted
10-05-2009 2:56 PM
by
Keith Willetts