Controversial housing development approved on former Aylesbury sports site

A plan to build up to 100 new homes in Aylesbury has been approved during a planning meeting.

The Conservative chairman of the strategic sites committee Councillor Alan Turner used his deciding vote to waive through Buckinghamshire Council’s application for Lower Road, Stoke Mandeville.

The council’s original outline plans for the redevelopment of the site of the former county council sports and social club facility included a total of 175 car parking spaces.

There were a mix of 93 one, two, three and four-bedroom homes included on the council’s masterplan, although there would be space for up to 100 homes.

Plans also include the provision of ‘green open space’ on the site, as well as associated landscaping, the widening of the access road, alterations to 149-151 Lower Road to accommodate a widened access, and an internal link road to Booker Park School.

The outcome of yesterday’s (9 May) committee meeting means that councillors backed planning officers’ recommendations to approve delegating the application for approval by the director of planning.

Councillor Turner voted to approve the plans after councillors on the committee were deadlocked with five votes for and five against with no abstentions.

He told the meeting: “It is never easy, it is never straight forward and it will never satisfy everybody. Sometimes it satisfies no one.

“But we have a duty to perform, and we have to make our own personal mind up according to everything.”

Campaigners spent years opposing plans for a housing project in the area, highlighting a lack of alternative sports hubs for families to use within the neighbourhood, among other perceived issues.