Creeting St Peter - development looms at Gateway 14

The aerial view shown is of the outline of the proposed Gateway 14 development, all of which is on land that, not so long ago, fell wholly with the parish boundaries of Creeting St Peter. Alright, it isn't obviously scenic, although it's rich farmland, with excellent arable yields in a normal year. The village itself is out of shot, although not as far as I would frankly prefer, off to the top left hand edge of the picture.

What the site is though, is well-connected. That's the A14 running diagonally across the bottom right hand quadrant, and paralleling it in the top right hand quadrant is the East Anglian Main Line railway. When you think of it, it's pretty amazing that it hasn't been built all over already but, whilst there have been various proposals, some of which have made it as far as initial planning approval, nothing has ever actually happened. Until now...

Apparently, Gateway 14 is...

...set to become the destination of choice along the A14 corridor and will consist of a mixed-use, market facing business park for warehousing and logistics with an innovation cluster within the “space to innovate” enterprise zone. The strategic aim is to benefit the wider economic area of Mid Suffolk, especially the growth of creative and technology businesses in the area, while also maximising opportunities for inward investment, job creation and wider community benefits.

It is intended that the main infrastructure will commence by Spring 2021 so that occupation can start in early 2022.

The draft masterplans show how the site could accommodate logistics buildings up to 1,000,000 sq ft, with roadside / retail uses (subject to planning) along the A14 frontage as well as the ability to accommodate headquarters office/R&D campus style buildings from 3,000 sq ft.

Sounds ghastly, doesn't it, but I acknowledge that the language is designed to attract potential customers, rather than charm local residents.

What it means is that, as a Parish Council, we are going to have to deal with the impact of a major development, almost certainly without any support which, for a council which consists of five people, a clerk and an annual precept of £5,500, is going to be a bit of a challenge. Better still, having received a briefing note from the company "facilitating public consultation on behalf of Gateway 14 Ltd" on Monday, we are informed that the community engagement phase will end on 31 October. I can't say that I'm wildly encouraged.

Indeed, this is all going to happen very quickly;

• SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 - Community and stakeholder engagement on draft plans
• AUTUMN 2020 - Consider feedback and finalise plans
• WINTER 2020 - Submit hybrid planning application to Mid Suffolk District Council (MSDC)
• WINTER 2020 - Formal period of public consultation (run by MSDC)
• EARLY 2021 - Application determined by MSDC
• SPRING 2021 - Detailed designs and layout drawn up
• SPRING 2021 - Commence infrastructure on site
• 2021 - Submit detailed planning application(s) to MSDC 

There are, already, some concerns on my part. Our pedestrian access to Stowmarket appears, on the face of the draft plot layout plan, to have been diverted significantly to run alongside the A14, thus lengthening the distance, and making it much less attractive to walkers, and the new link road will doubtless lead to significant volumes of traffic on the narrow road that links Creeting St Peter to both Stowmarket and Needham Market. And, perhaps more importantly, there will be a major development filling half of the current gap between Stowmarket and our village. Logistics buildings mean lorries coming to and from, presumably 24/7, which in turn means noise, bright lights and pollution.

I might reasonably ask, "What's in it for us?", and the answer will doubtless be jobs and facilities. Admittedly, those jobs will be for people travelling from further afield than the Creetings, and given the dreadful public transport links, they'll all be driving, but Mid Suffolk District Council Conservatives are generally pro-business, so they won't concern themselves too much about that. Besides, as they own the development, and hope to profit from it, there's little incentive to do anything much to mollify us.

Ah well, we'd better get to work, I suppose...