Blot on the landscape – or the key to a brighter future? (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Blot on the landscape – or the key to a brighter future?

10:42am Wednesday 13th October 2010 in Business By Will Kilner

In the eyes of its supporters, the Baildon science and technology park is a cutting-edge development that would stimulate new enterprise activity and create up to 700 jobs on a site designated for ‘employment use.’ To its detractors, the proposed scheme would destroy wildlife on a 14-acre stretch of land, cause further traffic chaos on already-congested roads, and be a blight on the open countryside.

Bradford Council is behind the plan to provide the business park as part of the Airedale Masterplan on a Council-owned site at Buck Lane, off Otley Road, in Baildon.

Private firms are expected to invest the majority of the money, with £3.5 million from Council funds and £1.3 million from Yorkshire Forward. The project would cost between £20 million and £25 million.

Dave Partridge, senior project development officer for the Council, said the local authority had submitted parallel planning applications for a science and technology-based business park with a hotel, alongside an access road to the site, including a set of traffic lights.

Mr Partridge said: “Throughout the district, there’s a severe shortage of sites readily available for development. The Buck Lane site is one of the major sites that is available.”

He said Bradford was losing out to other cities due to a shortage of top-quality business premises.

He added: “The district has lost two growing high-value companies to Leeds and York in the last year. We will probably never get them back again.

“There are existing businesses not two miles from here desperate to expand. Public intervention is required to stimulate development.”

Mr Partridge said high-tech companies liked to be close to each other in a cluster to work together and cross-feed information.

But why could the development not take place on a brownfield site?

Mr Partridge said: “The Council owns the Buck Lane site, for one thing, so we are in control of it.

“We don’t own every brownfield site across the district – many are owned by other developers.

“It’s the size of the site that allows us to do a large-scale mixed-use development. It will become a regionally-significant development.”

Objectors have questioned the wisdom of creating a new development when there is so much existing business space available to let in the district.

But Mr Partridge said existing empty premises may not be big enough and may need millions spending on them to bring them up to modern standards.

“High-tech companies often have quite niche requirements,” he added.

Andy Taylor, economic development programmes manager for Bradford Council, who worked on implementing the Airedale Masterplan, said: “This idea came about at the depth of the recession when there were a large number of redundancies being made and we were looking to help these companies who were hoping to expand and grow within the area.

“In terms of the Airedale Masterplan, it was clear that people wanted Airedale to remain a place where people both lived and worked, stopping the need for people to travel into Leeds and Bradford.”

But what of the district’s existing science park, located near the University of Bradford?

Mr Taylor said: “The problem with that is that it is now 30 years old and does not meet the needs of the businesses we are referring to.”

Another concern about the development relates to the impact on traffic along Otley Road, which already suffers from heavy congestion.

John Rowley, principal engineer for Bradford Council’s highways department, said: “It’s not for this development to solve the congestion problems that exist further along the network.

“You can’t expect this development to put right everything in the area – things that are not of its making.

“We have to make sure that the junction into the development is safe for use. The junction at the entrance to the site will be controlled by traffic lights.”

Councillor John Cole (Lib Dem, Baildon), said: “I am, on balance, in favour of this development.

“My view is that the potential gains outweigh the potential costs. A high priority for the Bradford district is to produce high-quality manufacturing output whereby Bradford firms are competitive not only nationally but internationally.

“We need to earn our living as a district. Council officers have informed me that high-tech manufacturing firms have expressed serious interest in taking long term leases in the industrial units which are proposed.”

Coun Cole said that, at one point in recent years, Filtronic had gained planning permission to build a development which was mainly industrial.

Although Filtronic eventually decided not to go ahead and sold the land back to the Council, Coun Cole said the previous permission constituted a “precedent” that would make it difficult to object in principle to employment development.

Councillor Roger L’Amie (Con, Baildon) said: “The argument for high-tech is, on the face of it, nearly unanswerable accept that, in planning permission, there’s no such thing as high-tech.

“Once planning permission is given on this site, it can be used for any light industrial use.

“Pace is a moderately high-tech business and has run from a building that’s nearly 100 years old, so it’s quite clear that it is possible to achieve high-tech jobs on this side of Bradford by the utilisation and development of brownfield sites.

“This development should only go ahead as a last resort if and when the traffic position has been properly sorted out.”