Impington Village College told it can keep unauthorised car park despite objections

A school has been told it can keep an unauthorised car park created on the edge of its site despite objections.

The car park was created without planning permission on a former area of grass next to Park Drive, on the edge of the Impington Village College (IVC).

South Cambridgeshire District Council has now agreed that the school can keep the car park and resurface it. It also granted permission for a new 3G artificial sports pitch on the school field.

Becky Churms, commercial manager at ELA Active and speaking on behalf of the college at a planning committee meeting on Wednesday (9 April), said the new 3G pitch is needed to improve the school’s facilities for students and offer sports clubs somewhere to train.

She said: “As an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ facility it simply cannot be the case that a reputable school like IVC should not have the outstanding facilities to match.”

Officers said there had been “significant” support and objections for the new sports pitch, with concerns raised that the changes could make the existing traffic and parking problems worse.

There were 92 comments submitted in support of the application and 63 objections lodged against it. Some of those who spoke in support of the plans said the new 3G pitch would be a “real asset”.

Another person who shared support for the plans said it was “about time” the village had “decent all weather football facilities”. However, some living directly opposite the car park raised concerns.

One person who lives along Park Drive said they objected to the “illegal car park being made permanent”.

Another neighbour said the plans were “unacceptable” and claimed they had been previously given assurance that the car park was only a “temporary measure”.

Another Park Drive resident said they supported the school’s right to improve facilities, but said this “should not be at a cost to local residents and the surrounding area”.

Officers said they recognised there is currently a problem with parking and traffic backing up along Park Drive onto New Road, but had worked with the school to amend the plans to try and help improve this situation.

They said a parking management plan has been put together and explained that this would be kept under review to see if the mitigation measures worked.

A Cambridgeshire County Council officer also assured councillors that they were “comfortable” the measures proposed would mitigate the impacts on parking.

Cllr Peter Fane (Lib Dem, Shelford) said the plans to formalise the car park would improve the current “rather muddy dirt car park”.

Cllr Heather Williams (Con, The Mordens) said she believed it would be “sensible” to formalise the car park and “more car parking cannot be a bad thing in this situation”.

Cllr Dr Lisa Redrup (Lib Dem, Harston and Comberton) said she agreed there is a need for the all weather sports pitch and said this would help provide more opportunities for people to get involved with sports.

When a decision was put to a vote the committee agreed unanimously to approve the plans.