This is a copy of a letter sent to John Prescott MP.

It regards the council and its sale of the Kingsway site to developers for the purpose of converting existing buildings into hotel, retail and leisure complex and 600-space car park.

I would like to draw this matter to your attention and ask you to issue an instruction that no decisions on the disposal of this land should be taken until the Inspector has reported on the Local Plan deliberations held earlier his year. The decision of Lancaster City Council to dispose of this site in this way is fundamentally unsound on two counts:

1. It makes a mockery of the whole Local Plan process. Your inspector, council officials and highly paid barristers spent a great deal of time listening to evidence (including my own) on alternative uses for this site, especially housing, to meet your own targets for "brownfield" housing. The Inspector has not yet reported and it breaches all notions of natural justice that a decision should be taken by the city council before a process of public consultation has reached its conclusion. If the city council decision stands there is no reason why anyone should have any confidence in the planning process in the future. It would clearly be a charade. The decision of the city council brings the planning process into serious disrepute.

2. Traffic, car parking and PPG 13 arguments. This decision by the city council introduces a new car park into the city centre. This new car park is described as a "park and walk" car park (a term which incidentally has no clear definition and also applies to every other car park in the city centre). This new car park will introduce 6000 additional vehicle movements per day into an already overloaded city centre gyratory system. It will make a mockery of your policies that are intended to reduce traffic levels and reduce dependence on the private car. This is a very serious and urgent matter. Lancaster City Council have undermined all your efforts to reduce traffic and have demonstrated that public consultation and the Local Plan process is a meaningless sham. I urge you to intervene and stop this disposal of this site for this purpose.

Prof John Whitelegg Lancaster

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.