Debenhams Ottaway’s planning team has been advising long term client, the St Albans Diocesan Board of Finance, on a project to build 5,000 homes and a distribution centre in Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire. The Board is part of a consortium, Land Improvements Holdings, along with BlackRock, the American fund management behemoth and Axa Real Estate.
The £1bn project has taken 15 years to get to this stage with Luton Borough Council applying for a judicial review of the planning permission in the newly formed Planning Court. Luton Borough Council failed to convince the Court of their argument that there was insufficient affordable housing included in the plans and have not taken it to the Supreme Court, effectively giving the go ahead to the development.
Reported in the Sunday Times, 21 June 2015.
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