New sports & leisure centre rejected by town council

FOLLOWING a decision to recommend rejection of a plan to turn a disused carpet warehouse in Thame into a sports and leisure centre, the applicant has expressed disappointment at the decision.

At Tuesday evening’s Thame Town Council’s Planning committee meeting, although on-site parking had been increased from the original plan to 35 spaces, plus 20 cycle racks, and other amendments had been made, Councillors voted five to three to recommend refusal of the application. The reasons given for the refusal were to do with the potential for parking problems for near neighbours, and the fact that the proposal went against the neighbourhood plan which designates the site as employment land and not for leisure.

The applicant, Martin Shipperley, told Thame.Net after the meeting: “It wasn’t the result we wanted so obviously disappointed, however there where many positives to take away and we felt apart from the parking and traffic flow information (Ed. that councillors said was missing, to help make a decision) that the overall feeling of the councillors was good, an improvement on the last sitting.

“We can now answer the questions that the councillors had and gather the evidence to back this up. We now have to decide if we are to go back to TTC or take it to committee who seem much more accommodating to our plans for the community Fitness centre we and the people of Thame want.” (Martin Shipperley’s agent, Jeffrey Emett, told the committe that 130 letters from individuals had been received)

You can read the full application and comment on it HERE