An extract from Thame Town Council's newsletter is below:
Thame Town Council has had two meetings with Angle Property Limited since they purchased Kingsmead Business Park from Tesco. The Council pleaded with Angle Property to be an exemplary Business Park Manager, ensuring the continued provision of much needed high quality employment land for Thame.
But unfortunately Angle Property Ltd seem to have one aim – to turn the whole area into an unwanted residential development. Firstly, they used central Government initiated Permitted Development Rights to secure permission to convert the DAF building to 45 flats, in spite of the Town Council pointing out that such rights didn’t apply. The Planning Authority went ahead and gave permission. They then amended that permission in an attempt to establish residential principles on the existing car parking provision.
Angle Property have now come up with a further idea to build a Care Home on the employment parking area, with a related survey now widely distributed, seeking community approval. Again the Town Council vehemently oppose this, as it would restrict employment land further, and is potentially another tool to establish residential use of the entire site. It is clearly in contravention to the adopted Thame Neighbourhood Plan and the district Local Plan. If additional care home facilities are required in Thame (which is not yet proven), then it is up to the community of Thame to decide the best site, via a revised, community led Neighbourhood Plan. Government guidance supports us in this. We do not want developers telling us what Thame needs, with the ultimate aim of maximising their investment to the detriment of Thame. The last thing Thame needs is more employment land being converted to residential, or Thame will become yet another dormitory / commuter town with no heart – adding to an ever increasing list of such towns in England.
