Further to the article published immediately below, Spelthorne Council has published the following response:

Spelthorne Borough Council is preparing a new local plan for the Borough which will need to balance many competing demands including protecting areas of importance.

As part of this work it has recently issued a ‘call for sites’ enabling those who have ideas of where development might go to put them forward. This is a statutory requirement. In response to this Kempton Park Racecourse and Redrow Homes have jointly proposed the closure of the Racecourse and building of 3000 homes.

To clarify, the Council does not own the site and has no part in the proposal brought forward by its owners. A planning application has not been submitted.

Cllr Ian Harvey, Leader of the Council, said: “I am fully aware of the views of local residents and have consistently made clear my strong opposition to development of this site and my determination to protect the Green Belt in Spelthorne. I made my position absolutely clear in an open letter which I wrote to Redrow homes in April 2016. Nothing has changed. The Council’s finances are very robust and any suggestion that it needs money from new development is completely groundless.”

It will be for the Council, through its new Local Plan, to decide how much development is needed in the future and the most sustainable locations for it to go. It is not bound by any particular proposals that are put forward by developers.

The Council expects its Local Plan to be adopted in 2020.