A BASINGSTOKE MP has written to the minister for housing and planning to request that the planning application for a distribution depot at Oakdown Farm be called-in under powers available to the Government.

Maria Miller said she sent a call-in request, with the support of fellow Hampshire MPs, to the Government to prevent the application from going ahead.

The MP's intervention comes after the Newlands Developments submitted a revised planning application to the council for the new distribution hub on the land.

In October last year, members of the council’s development control committee had refused Newlands’ previous application - understood to be earmarked for Amazon.

The amended application is 65 per cent smaller than the previous application - down from 271,000 square metres to 101,000 square metres. The height of the buildings has also been reduced between two and three metres across the site.

However, Mss Miller said she has written a formal objection to the Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council as part of the consultation on the application.

“This application for a distribution depot at Oakdown Farm, near to Junction 7 of the M3 is the second attempt by the developer, having had a previous application rightly rejected by the Planning Committee in October last year,” Ms Miller said.

“The latest application does nothing to address the fundamental problem with the original, namely that the land in question is adjacent to the preferred site for our new hospital for Basingstoke and North Hampshire – one of the 40 new hospitals planned for the Government’s Hospital Building Programme. Any construction of this nature and use would have significant and adverse impacts on the viability of a new hospital, which must be the priority for the Basingstoke, and is therefore not one I can in good conscience support.

“The Highways Agency has confirmed there is no Government plan to expand the capacity of M3 junction 7, so all development planned at this location needs to work within the current road capacity or have funded mitigation in place. The application is being made without detailed analysis of the capacity of the road network that factors in the new hospital. Meanwhile, the development of this part of the Borough is not part of the current agreed Local Plan, and so should not be agreed by the Borough Council, as the planning authority.

“In unison with other Hampshire MPs I have therefore written to the Minister for Housing and Planning, requesting that the Government Call-in the application, to prevent it going ahead.

“In the meantime I have also written a formal objection to the Borough Council as part of the consultation on the application. This is open until 16 May and I would strongly urge all local residents to contribute to the consultation and make their views known to the Council.”

The planning application can be viewed on the Borough Council’s website here.