A SERIES of 'public inquiry' style meetings should take place if the community stadium moves to the planning application stage, a scrutiny committee have said.

The special circumstances required to override Green Belt policy have not been shown and doubts remain as to whether there is enough space at Wycombe Air Park, members of the Improvement and Review Commission said.

Fears that a community stadium could become a 'white elephant' are 'still an issue', while value for money needs further consideration, the committee heard.

Four meetings over two weeks in a 'public inquiry' style will take place to give the public a platform to speak out on the plans, if the commission's recommendations are accepted by Cabinet.

The findings would 'inform whether to proceed with a planning application or not'.

The report will be considered by Wycombe District Council's Cabinet, which meets Monday to decide whether to proceed with the project.

Read the commission's report to cabinet.doc

It follows work by the commission's Task and Finish Group, which gave its findings at a meeting on Wednesday night.

Cllr Paul Rogerson strongly criticised the lack of a case to build on the greenbelt during the meeting.

He said: "Certainly, as far as I can see no very special circumstances have been identified. The current reports says the special circumstances doesn't exist.

"It would seem to me that the special circumstances revolve around Wasps."

He added he was not convinced all of the new facilities should be built on one site, saying Princes Risborough and Wooburn Green residents may disagree.

Cllr Ron Gaffney cited Reading Football Club's Madejski Stadium and grounds built in Milton Keynes and Brighton as "fantastic” examples.

He said what WDC was doing was not "unique" and had to investigate such propositions.

But Cllr James Malliff asked why the "white elephant" of Darlington Football Club's ground had been left out of the report.

  • CABINET MEETING

    Will take place on Monday at WDC offices in Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe. Public can attend. Cabinet will consider:

    A) The consultation results, report and its recommendations.

    B) Recommendations from the scrutiny committee.

    If Cabinet members decides to move forward with the project, this would pave the way to begin preparations for a planning application.

  • IMPROVEMENT AND REVIEW COMMISSION

    Voted not to support the motion proposed by Cllr Steve Guy to halt the spending of £750,000 earmarked for the project.

    But the commission made a recommendation to council that once spending reaches £500,000 on this project, there will be a report back to Council. About one third - around £250,000, has so far been spent.

    </

Commission Chairman Cllr Alex Collingwood said: "We didn't particularly look at it but we did look at the white elephant syndrome.

“White elephant syndrome is still an issue but that this stage we are looking at the concept, not the business case."

Cllr Bazley said Brighton and Reading were the wrong examples examples because both have exceptional transport access, unlike Booker.

He said: "I don't think on top of a hill which is an airfield is particularly workable, so I don't think comparing to these was particularly helpful."

A planning official told the committee 60 out of the air park's 97 hectares of land are needed in total. Between 18 and 23 hectares would be used for the 600 houses – the "enabling development" - he said.

But he added: “I wouldn't want to say it definitely can and definitely can't fit at the moment.”

He said it was an area requiring further work.

The commission's report states it still has concerns on the limits of air park's space and said wider infrastructure requirements,and the amount and density of housing, in particular, needed addressing.

The impact of a possible expansion of High Heavens waste disposal centre is also not yet clear, the commission was told.