{"id":629666,"date":"2025-12-13T06:34:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T06:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/629666\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T06:34:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T06:34:20","slug":"no-affordable-homes-as-part-of-grace-church-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/629666\/","title":{"rendered":"No affordable homes as part of Grace Church development"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Artist's<\/a>Artist’s impression of the proposed Grace Community Hub in Kempston. Image: Grace Community Church<\/p>\n

Campaigners against a church and housing development on a known flood plain have reacted angrily to claims that there will be no affordable homes within the scheme.<\/p>\n

Grace Church submitted its application for the community hub in Kempston in February 2024. <\/p>\n

Read: Mixed response to Grace community hub planning application in Kempston<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Bedford Borough Council has now released for consultation the advice of its independent viability assessor, BNP Paribas, on the application.<\/p>\n

BNP Paribas has specified that the Council should not agree to \u201cenabling\u201d housing if Grace Church\u2019s \u201ccommunity hub\u201d benefits don\u2019t outweigh the loss of urban open space or policy-compliant affordable housing.<\/p>\n

Grace Church submitted its own viability assessment as part of its planning application, and claimed that Grace could still not include the normal 30% proportion of affordable homes in the development, or pay for any other planning obligations such as residents\u2019 education or health needs.<\/p>\n

Cllr James Valentine (Labour, Kempston West) said the announcement had caused \u201coutrage in the community\u201d, who he says don\u2019t accept that a church should be exempt from normal developers\u2019 obligations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis focuses the planning balance decision on these supposed community benefits. Residents have said time and again that they don\u2019t need an additional charity in this middle-income area, and that existing churches and charities cater very well for residents\u2019 needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loss of urban green space<\/p>\n

Campaigners have said that the proposed site is an irreplaceable green space that provides vital heritage value and supports natural flood management. <\/p>\n

\u201cFlooding remains a major concern for residents in the Church Walk and Water Lane areas, where incidents have become increasingly frequent,\u201d said Cllr Valentine.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany still recall the Christmas 2020 floods, which prompted evacuation notices, as well as flooding last September that contributed to travel disruption and national media coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A421A421 flooded at Marston Moretaine from above on 23 September 2024 Image: Cozzas Drone\/Facebook<\/p>\n

More than 400 formal objections have now been submitted to the council. Moreover, Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust\u2019s objection points out that the canal route, already approved by the Council, runs directly through the proposed development.<\/p>\n

Cllr Valentine presented the planning updates to Kempston Town Council on 9 December, who agreed to send in another objection to back up their previous ones.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he drew attention to Grace Church\u2019s non-attendance at inter-faith services or any of Kempston\u2019s Christmas events, saying it was \u201chardly an advertisement for a \u2018community\u2019 church.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Grace Church told the Bedford Independent: \u201cIt is an important point to note that the site is not on a Flood Plain.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Cllr Valentine said: \u201cTo quote from Waterman, [Grace Church\u2019s] own consultant\u2019s report that was included in the application: \u2018Based on the Environment Agency (EA) Flood Map for Planning, a significant proportion of the Site lies within Flood Zone 2, associated with the River Great Ouse. Flood Zone 3 is limited to the northern parcel\u2026’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artist’s impression of the proposed Grace Community Hub in Kempston. Image: Grace Community Church Campaigners against a church…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[194906,728,194907,194908,194909,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-629666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-cllr-james-valentine","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-grace-community-church","11":"tag-kempston","12":"tag-protect-kempstons-flood-plain","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115710871713710809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}