Suffolk Coastal District Council writes: "A ‘masterplan’ promoting exciting development opportunities in Felixstowe has been submitted by Suffolk Coastal District Council, as part of the current review of the Local Plan.

As its name suggests, the main driver for the ‘Felixstowe Leisure Vision’ submission is to explore the future opportunities to provide cutting-edge, modern and enhanced sports and leisure facilities to benefit Felixstowe and help grow wider economy.

The council owns a significant amount of land in north Felixstowe and submitted the proposal in its capacity as a landowner to the ‘Issues and Options Consultation’ which took place from August to the end of October 2017, as part of the Local Plan Review.

The document has now been published on Suffolk Coastal’s website, along with other comments and documents from hundreds of other respondents. These provide evidence and suggestions from landowners and other stakeholders to the Local Plan Review for the District as a whole.

Once agreed, the revised Local Plan will inform the location of new homes and infrastructure for this district until 2036.

“The Felixstowe Leisure Vision document demonstrates the potential for a multi-million pound sports and leisure development and highlights the opportunity to continue with the current re-vitalisation of Felixstowe,” said Cllr Geoff Holdcroft, Suffolk Coastal’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member with responsibility for Economic Development.

“However, this is just the start of a long conversation with local people about what they want and how we maximise the potential of this area,”

“There is already a major development planned for the area and other landowners have been actively promoting their land for possible development. So, rather than having a patchwork of ad hoc developments, Suffolk Coastal decided to be proactive in pulling together all the various strands of possible development, including that relating to our land, to create a bold vision for north Felixstowe.”

“Suffolk Coastal has already invested millions of pounds in revitalising Felixstowe. We believe it is vital that we continue to build on this investment to create developments that benefit local people and visitors to the area.”

“One of the attractions of this approach is that it offers great potential to deliver the necessary infrastructure and major benefits to current and future residents of the Felixstowe peninsula.”

“The masterplan contains an overview of what could happen with this area, including future state-of-the-art leisure facilities, much-needed extra homes for young people and new jobs.”

“We accept this is a bold vision for the future but the ideas contained within the document have been submitted as part of a wider consultation process and there is a long way to go before anything becomes a reality.”

The council’s submission, which was been prepared by planning consultants Strutt & Parker and urban designers at LDA Design, will now be considered by the Local Plan Working Group.

There will also be on-going engagement with communities, local landowners, Felixstowe Town Council and other stakeholders.

The Issues and Options Consultation process is led by Suffolk Coastal as the Local Planning Authority. The next step in the process will be that there will be another round of consultation, once the council has developed its ‘Preferred Options’ for sites to be included in the Local Plan. This will be published during summer 2018.

All responses to the Issues and Options consultation can be found at: http://consult.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/consult.ti/Issuesandoptions2017/viewCompoundDoc?docid=9052404&partid=9073300#9073300 "