Now the Emerging Bracknell Forest Local Plan has been submitted, we take a look at one of its biggest and most controversial features.

Within the Local Plan, Bracknell Forest Council has identified Jealott’s Hill as a location for a major ‘garden village’ development consisting of 2,000 homes, a school, community facilities and a science and innovation park.

However, in order for Jealott’s Hill to be built on, the land must be reclassified so it is no longer designated as Green Belt land. The Local Plan states 115.7 hectares of land should be removed from the green belt to make way for the settlement.

It also allocates 0.4 hectares of land to create eight permanent Gypsy and Traveller pitches.

READ MORE: Activists 'quietly confident' campaign to end plan to build 2,000 homes will succeed

The plans for Jealott’s Hill have been outlined on JealottsHill.com.

The Jealott’s Hill development has a trio of stakeholders: Syngenta, Taylor Wimpey and CEG.

Syngenta, a multinational agricultural science company is already established at Jealott’s Hill, which it uses for its International Research Centre. The company currently occupies 18 hectares of land.

The company hopes to build a Science and Innovation Park, which it states will protect the jobs of 850 staff currently working at the site and create thousands more.

Bracknell News:

Housebuilding company Taylor Wimpey are the second big stakeholders, who will build a majority of the homes if the development is given the green light. The Local Plan states of the 2,000 homes planned, 700 would be affordable, and five per cent of the housing plots would be given over to self or custom builders. Taylor Wimpey currently has developments in Woodley, Three Mile Cross and Newbury. It also has a plan to build 68 homes near Beaufort Park in Great Hollands, Bracknell.

READ MORE: The 20 sites where 4,600 homes could be built in Bracknell Forest

The third stakeholder is CEG, a building investment company that has a portfolio of office buildings and residential developments.

Plans for the Jealott’s Hill major development were unveiled in 2019. They are being opposed by the Save Jealott’s Hill campaign, who argue the community will be unsustainable and the plans represent an intolerable loss of Green Belt land.

The Local Plan has now been sent to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate for an independent review.

Once the inspector’s examination of the plan is completed, it will send a report back to Bracknell Forest Council recommending whether or not it can adopt the plan. In most cases  changes are recommended in order for the plan to be adopted, which are referred to as  ‘main modifications’.