Council relaxes planning regulations to allow Catesby innovation centre to ‘pay the bills’

The former Catesby Tunnel in Charwelton has recently been converted from a disused railway tunnel into a £12 million testing facility where vehicles can be driven at high speeds to monitor their aerodynamic performance.

A £4 million innovation centre has also been built next to the site, which is nearing completion. But the applicants of the scheme, TotalSim, have successfully managed to convince councillors to relax regulations on what kind of businesses can become tenants at the centre.

A planning condition had restricted occupiers to only allow companies who used the nearby tunnel, in order to prevent establishing a general business park at the site.

But that restriction has been relaxed for a two-year period in order to help the innovation centre remain viable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking at a Daventry District Council planning meeting on Wednesday (October 21), Dr Rob Lewis, the managing director at Total Sim, told councillors that the small engineering companies they were hoping to attract to the innovation centre were ‘risk averse’ during the pandemic and were unlikely to sign medium or long term leases.

He said: “Our vision for the innovation centre is 100 per cent to fill it with engineering companies who are doing testing in the tunnel, that is unchanged. The problem we face now is we either press on and take a risk in leasing these spaces, or we mothball it.

Do we look to occupy it or do we pause? The reason for this application is that it will give us some confidence that we have elbow room to put other people in there if we can’t fill the space. Given a choice between an engineer and an accountant – I would choose an engineer every day. But I need to make sure we have some scope to pay the bills in these challenging times.”

Twelve local households had raised objections to the amended condition, arguing that it would establish a ‘precedent’ to allow businesses not associated with the tunnel to move into the building.

Their concerns were shared by Labour councillor Stephen Dabbs, who said: “My greatest concern is if we grant this amendment, what other ones will follow on? And will we all regret it in the future when we have some industrial estate on the outside of the village? Many of the villagers are concerned.”

But the majority of the committee were of the view that the council should support a scheme that would bring investment and jobs to the area through a difficult period.

Councillor Malcolm Longley said: “Very substantial investment has been made by a number of companies, and my view is that we are in exceptional circumstances and we as a council should do everything we possibly can to support enterprises such as this.”