Rutland County Council asked for opinion on turning former RAF Woolfox off A1 into employment site

A former RAF barracks could be turned into an employment site.

Plans are in the early stages to expand Woolfox depot in Rutland onto the former RAF barracks.

A screening opinion request has been submitted to Rutland County Council to gauge planning officers’ thoughts before an outline planning application is submitted.

The 48-acre site would wrap around the eastern and southern sides of the existing depot, which incorporates Zeeco, UFAC and Alltech, up to the edge of Woolfox golf course.

Plans are in the early stages but Zeeco has been identified as a potential user of the site.

The existing depot is accessed from the A1 Great North Road southbound slip road but if plans move ahead, a new roundabout is proposed to the site’s south-east.

About 7,500 new homes had been proposed for the airfield, along with schools, employment, and other amenities.

In December 2019 ‘Woolfox Garden Village’ was deemed by the council to be undeliverable due to insufficient evidence relating to minerals, roads and landscape.

But after a recent Government announcement that an extra 1.5 million homes must be built across the country in the next five years, the former RAF Woolfox has been identified as a ‘future opportunity site’ in the draft local plan.

The area earmarked for employment makes up just a small part of the wider site.

In a letter to the council agent and senior planner, Sam Perkins explained that the development has ‘sought to ensure that the ability to deliver that site is not stymied’, but that the future opportunity area is a longer-term prospect and will be subject to a separate development plan.

Cabinet member for planning Coun Paul Browne (Lib Dem - Oakham South) previously said any development on the privately owned Woolfox site, ‘if they are to come about’, would realistically be towards the end of the local plan period, which is the mid-2040s.

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