A BATTLE between two camps over the siting of a proposed new business park is intensifying.
Members of a business group at its first major conference have been told of influential support for a prestigious new employment site and park-and-ride station at a controversial location east of Kidderminster.
Planning expert Keith Fenwick told Wyre Forest Business Forum the area was selected by Centro, the passenger transport executive for the West Midlands, as one of 10 preferred sites in the whole region for the facility.
This follows growing controversy after Wyre Forest District Council elected, despite a fiery debate in February, to promote alternative land at Lea Castle for employment development.
Mr Fenwick, representing Offmore Farm Partnership, was arguing the case for the east Kidderminster site to be flagged in the forthcoming new Worcestershire County structure plan for development.
Mr Fenwick of town planning firm Mason Richards outlined Centro's position on the Offmore Farm Partnership proposals to 50 business people who met at Kidderminster Harriers Football Club.
Other speakers included Walter Delin, chief executive of Wyre Forest District Council, Keith Williams, Worcestershire's sustainable transport manager, and Wyre Forest MP David Lock.
Centro had put on record "full support" for proposals for a park-and-ride site at Offmore Farm to complement the proposed reopening of the Stourbridge-Walsall-Lichfield railway line, Mr Fenwick said.
The scheme was under review by the Shadow Strategic Railway Authority which had received county council data showing that four times as many people in Wyre Forest work in the Black Country than in Birmingham.
On the Lea Castle site, Mr Fenwick said the NHS Trust owning the land wanted to see housing development.
He argued that unlike Offmore Farm the area did not fall in an identified transport corridor and could not provide a park-and-ride rail station.
Wyre Forest District Council objections to Offmore have centred on worries about traffic problems and the risk of greenbelt development.
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