Leighton Buzzard hoping to avoid "another false dawn" as consultation over land south begins

Land south of the High Street in Leighton Buzzard “can’t be everything for everyone”, as the space is insufficient, a meeting heard.

Ahead of a public consultation process opening, Central Bedfordshire Council chief executive Marcel Coiffait suggested the number of ideas for the site would fill three times the area.

Commercial real estates services firm Cushman and Wakefield PLC has assessed the market potential of the site, a CBC Leighton-Linslade partnership committee meeting heard.

But co-opted committee member Gennaro Borrelli said: “We’ve been here before with many promises in the past from CBC.

“Cushman Wakefield are the latest in a string of consultants, with tens of thousands of pounds of public money spent on lovely plans.

“We’ve had public consultation after public consultation and open events. Leighton-Linslade residents have responded in their droves.

“The residents are committed and engaged to what happens in their town centre and particularly on this piece of land.

“GBA Consulting advised the council in 2016 to buy all the land enabling it to be the lead provider on this project, avoiding a piecemeal approach. That advice was ignored and more than £100,000 was spent with those consultants.”

Mr Coiffait replied: “Cushman Wakefield has prepared town centre master plans, as well as redevelopment and regeneration of all kinds of sites for different purposes.

“The company isn’t purely a commercial developer, but it does that as well. I could put forward an option using three times the land area based on those desires expressed for this site.

“There’s a real chance to deliver economic benefit, potentially some cultural benefits, but it can’t be everything for everyone because it doesn’t fit and won’t add up financially.

“It’s about that balance which we’re trying to achieve during consultation. If the history has been chequered, there’s still an opportunity to rescue that. An enormous amount of work has been done up to now.

“We need to assess what we’re going to deliver and how we achieve it. It’s not all in our control. There’s an opportunity for other landholders to buy into the concept.

“And we need to consider how it’ll be funded, so any chance to bid for funding would be taken forward. These things are competitive. If we apply for the towns fund, I can’t guarantee we’d get anything from the government.”

Town councillor Clive Palmer, who chairs the committee, explained: “It’s an extremely critical central site and we don’t want this to be another false dawn.”

CBC Conservative Leighton Buzzard North and town councillor Ewan Wallace backed the expenditure in engaging Cushman and Wakefield to come up with the outline market and option analysis, saying: “Let’s focus on the positive.

“Let the public say what should be on the site and match that against the company’s appraisal. The consultation isn’t setting out proposals.

“I heard an allegation Leighton-Linslade Town Council has been wholly in the dark and that’s not the case. We’ve known CBC was preparing a consultation process, and that Cushman and Wakefield were engaged to do the necessary work.”