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Andover Airfield - Business Park History 1996 Test Valley Local Plan allocated 33.5 ha of land for a business park restricted to class B1 use (office and light industrial) plus a hotel and conference facility. This was in response to county structure plan recommendations that Andover needed to rebalance its economy. The concept outlined in the plan was to provide land for high-quality, low-density development embodying a high standard of building design and landscaping. The site was stated to be "the only opportunity close to the national road network where this type of development can be accommodated in the landscape setting of Andover without unduly disrupting its visual quality." The plan further described the park as a long-term reserve for high-quality low-density business uses and acknowledged that not all of the site might be developed within the plan period. In March 2000 TVBC published Andover Beyond 2000 (containing initial ideas for the next revision of the local plan) which recommended extending the business park by 15ha and lifting the restriction to exclusive B1 use on part of the site to to allow for firms whose operations required integrated B1, B2 and B8 uses on a single site. In February 2002, in response to the consultations about Andover Beyond 2000, the Officers' report to council recommended extending the business park by an unspecified amount beyond that suggested in Andover Beyond 2000. Later in 2002 the deposit draft of the local plan revision was published which included an initial phase expansion up to the present (2008) boundary with a post-2011 extension up to Red Post Lane. In May 2002 Dreweatt Neate submitted planning application TVN.6096/8 for B1, B2 and B8 development on the 33.5ha specified in the local plan, with the explicit intention of a later phase 2 being permitted to go ahead on the extension to the business park when this became incorporated into the local plan. The application cited floorspace allocations: 9000sqm Industrial, 45,000sqm office, 9000 storage and distribution and 6000sqm for the hotel. In July 2003 councillors approved TVN.6096/8 but acknowledged it to be a departure from the existing local plan (because of the B2 and B8 content). In July 2006 a decision letter granting consent and incorporating agreed legal matters, was finally issued by TVBC to Dreweatt Neate; some of the attached conditions reflected the fact that the revised local plan (see below) had by then been adopted. Meanwhile in March 2005 the public inquiry into the revised local plan ended and the inspectors ruled that plans for all post-2011 land allocations were inadmissable. They also recommended against extending the business park beyond the boundary specified in the 1996 local plan, stating that extensive use of greenfield land, when there was a large amount of vacant capacity on the existing industrial estates, was contrary to regional and national guidelines for urban regeneration. Later in 2005 TVBC resolved to ignore the inspectors' recommendation and to extend the business park as in the deposit draft. The revised local plan was formally adopted in June 2006.
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