AS THE district councillor for Eastington and Standish, I have been closely involved in discussions with residents about their reaction to the Ecotricity proposal to build a football stadium and business park.

It is clear from my personal survey and the work done by Eastington Parish Council that the local people are overwhelmingly against this proposal.

They have good reason to be:-

  • This proposal is not in the recently approved Stroud District Council Local Plan, unlike the west of Stonehouse development, which is also in the parish of Eastington.
  • The traffic impact on both the M5 and A419 is a concern. A concern shared by Gloucestershire County Council who state that the planned A419 improvements are adequate for the west Of Stonehouse development but do not include the Ecotricity proposal. They have asked Ecotricity to expand their traffic survey (initially wholly inadequate) to the A419 as far as Stonehouse. We await these results.
  • Ecotricity claim there is a need for additional employment land and that the revenue will help Stroud District Council’s funding. The government inspector of the Stroud Local Plan stated that the estimates of employment growth and land available for this (including west of Stonehouse) is already more than adequate. These additional developments already identified will generate valuable revenue for the district.

So how do we move forward?

I have two suggestions that I hope are helpful recognising that Forest Green Rovers will need a new stadium at some point:-

  • Either : Ecotricity remove the business park and only propose a stadium. Although I suspect that the two are linked, which raises concerns that this is really a property development and not purely a football stadium for Forest Green Rovers.
  • Or : Ecotricity withdraw their application and resubmit it in the first major review of the Stroud District Council Local Plan, due in 2019. This will allow SDC to look at this in the context of other alternative proposals particularly for employment land and with the advantage of three years of data about potential employment growth. This proposal could then be looked at in the context of the district and hopefully alternative sites.

If Ecotricity go ahead with this application, then it will be reviewed by the new Stroud District Council elected on May 5.

Stephen Davies

Stroud district councillor Eastington and Standish