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PRESS RELEASE For immediate release 2nd October 2012

Put Jobs First Time to End House-building on Employment Land in Taunton

Summary Independent Local Councillor, Mike Rigby, calls on Taunton Deane Borough Council to

protect employment land from residential development, citing the need to maintain employmentopportunities. Rigby points to concerns that Taunton is losing out on new jobs to Bridgwater and

Wellington at a time when commuting is becoming ever more expensive.

Taunton, Somerset 02/10/12 Mike Rigby is urging Taunton Deane to halt its policy of

redeveloping industrial estates and other business premises for housing. Recent years have seen a

swathe of former employment premises demolished to make way for housing in the County Town,

with major sites such as the 62 acre Taunton Trading Estate, Taunton Cider Factory, land at the

Railway Station and numerous smaller sites across the town. Sites like the old Malthouse and

County Garage near the Cricket Ground well-known among them. Rigby said What we need right

now are jobs. The County Town can hardly be said to be open for business when we see ouremployment space continually eroded by residential redevelopment. If we need more housing then

we are going to have to look for other sites, including greenfield sites around the edge of the town.

Successive administrations at Taunton Deane have attempted to see Taunton compete with major

regional centres, like Bristol and Exeter. As things stand, we dont even compete with Bridgwater,

let alone Bristol. Just look at the proactive view taken by Sedgemoor District Council in protecting

and delivering employment land and attracting new businesses to Bridgwater. Clearly, the national

economy is currently struggling but we need to be ready to capitalise on the recovery, when it

comes, with a ready supply of occupiable business premises. Its no good pointing to undeveloped

areas identified for employment uses, such as the Cattle Market site; the fact is they arent built, will

be expensive and wont be available for some years. Taunton Deane would no doubt point to the

development of Blackbrook as an example of additional employment space but this is exclusively

office space and does not replace the type of business space lost, for example, at Taunton Trading

Estate. Even Somerset County Council is at it, threatening to sell-off County Hall as a hall of

residence for Somerset College.

In Bishops Lydeard, we are now seeing an attempt by developer Wimpey to entirely sweep away all

the employment elements of a mixed-use development at the railway station. This was a

development reluctantly accepted by many local people on the grounds that it offered employment

opportunities and boosted tourism. Now, with their planning permission in hand, the developer is

attempting to do away with all those jobs, perhaps over 100, and replace them with 8 houses. This

must stop if we are not to find ourselves lagging behind other towns and cities in our attempts to

scramble out of recession.

The concept of redeveloping brownfield sites ahead of greenfield was born out of the need to

regenerate the large industrial sites abandoned with the shrinkage of UK manufacturing in the

1980s. But, according to Rigby, its now gone too far, with any and all commercial and industrial land

now at risk of residential development due to the frequently higher land values. Its time to protect

our factories, shops, pubs, warehouses and offices from the voracious appetite of housebuilders,

who prey on any employment site, regardless of its continued viability, urged Rigby. There will

always be some smaller sites where residential redevelopment will be appropriate given surrounding

uses but the scale of loss in Taunton has gone well beyond what is sensible for the local economy.

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