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McLAREN CAMPUS WOKING WOKING BOROUGH COUNCIL SITE ALLOCATIONS DPD REGULATION 19 CONSULTATION RESPONSE McLAREN TECHNOLOGY GROUP LTD DECEMBER 2018 McLAREN CAMPUS WOKING WOKING BOROUGH COUNCIL SITE ALLOCATIONS DPD REGULATION 19 CONSULTATION RESPONSE McLAREN TECHNOLOGY GROUP LTD DECEMBER 2018 Issue / revision FINAL Prepared by Thomas Southgate Reference 135727 Signature This document is issued for Date December 2018 [ ] Information [ ] Approval Checked by Tim Hancock [ ] Comment [ X ] Submission Signature Comments Date December 2018 Authorised by Tim Hancock Signature Date December 2018 Please return by © Terence O’Rourke Ltd 2018. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. All figures (unless otherwise stated) © Terence O’Rourke Ltd 2018. Based upon the Ordnance Survey mapping with the permission of the Ordnance Survey on behalf of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office © Crown Copyright Terence O’Rourke Ltd Licence number 100019980. Contents Response to Regulation 19 consultation question 5 4 Response to Regulation 19 consultation question 6 17 Response to Regulation 19 consultation question 8 18 3 Regulation 19 consultation question 5 Please give details of why you consider the Site Allocations DPD is / is not legally compliant or is sound / unsound, or has met / not met the requirements of the Duty to Cooperate. Please be as precise as possible. Include any references to relevant legislation, policies and/or regulations 1. Introduction 1.1 McLaren Technology Group Ltd (McLaren) wishes to outline its overall support for Woking Borough Council’s Site Allocations DPD. However, it considers that the plan in its current form is unsound when tested against paragraph 182 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2012 (paragraph 35 in 2018 version), as it does not consider it to be positively prepared, justified or consistent with national policy. Principally, McLaren considers that there is a clear justification and benefit to its campus being removed from the Green Belt and allocated within the DPD as a strategic employment site or explicitly identified as a strategic employment site in the Green Belt. 1.2 Principally, McLaren considers that there is a clear justification and benefit to its campus being allocated within the DPD as a strategic employment site in the Green Belt. 2. About McLaren 2.1 For over 50 years McLaren has operated at the forefront of British automotive engineering and design from its base in Woking, and it is renowned as one of the world’s most prominent high-technology brands. Its Formula 1 success has led to its automotive components being incorporated into other race team cars, to the success of the McLaren Formula 1 road car, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren road car, and to the Group’s confidence in its expanding range of McLaren Automotive road cars, the most recent being the McLaren Senna and McLaren Speedtail. 2.2 McLaren’s success in the motor racing industry has in part resulted from the continued excellence in engineering and design achieved at its campus in Woking, and the skills and associations built up within the local population. McLaren is a global brand, a major part of the national motorsport cluster, and a nationally significant exporter. McLaren therefore is a significant contributor to the local, regional and national economy. 2.3 McLaren’s racing success is the principal driver behind all other activities, and has in turn fed through to the rapid growth of McLaren Applied Technologies in delivering creative and technological solutions to many divergent sectors of British industry, such as UK sport, energy, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, transportation and consumer brands. The transfer of technology, skills and know-how within Formula 1 to developing a McLaren branded high-performance sports car is not surprising. What is astounding, and much less visible, is how McLaren is using the cutting-edge technology and expertise in data monitoring and human performance from its Formula 1 experience to help develop products and processes across a whole range of sectors as diverse as: • A computer model and drilling simulator to improve North Sea oil and gas drilling operations • A biotelemetry system for use in pharmaceutical trials to better assess and understand the trial results more accurately • A Decision Insight system that allows air traffic control to optimise traffic flow • A lightweight leg brace support commissioned by the US Marines 4 • A baby incubation carrier to transport seriously ill babies • A super light-weight carbon fibre road racing bicycle with an electronic gearshift and weighing less than 1kg • Improving the efficiency of handover processes and surgery techniques within Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital • A software scenario modelling tool to allow companies to forecast outcomes of corporate strategies spanning a variety of market conditions • Creating a not-for-profit partnership with UK Sport, English Institute for Sport, Scottish Institute for Sport and key GB medal winning sports, to supply cutting- edge electronic technology to British coaches and athletes in their quest for medals at World and European Championships as well as future Summer and Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. 2.4 It is through this growing diversification that McLaren is looking to excel beyond the automotive industry and meet the challenges of a rapidly shifting world economy; creating and shaping new markets, working with external partners to transfer and re- apply technologies from other industries to produce solutions, and continually adapting and innovating to be able to grow and progress as a world-leading company. This is all led from its headquarters and campus in Woking. 2.5 McLaren is a major part of the national motorsport cluster, and is one of Woking Borough’s largest employers, with in excess of 3,000 staff working at the campus on a day-to-day basis. McLaren provides a major contribution to diversifying the economic offer of Woking, making the borough’s economy and jobs profile more balanced and more competitive, and therefore more resilient. 2.6 The Motorsport Cluster, which extends in a crescent from Norwich through Northampton and Oxford to Surrey, is one of the UK’s few success stories in the area of high value manufacturing. It is hugely valuable to the economy, in its contribution to GDP, to export performance, to jobs and to the UK’s international reputation as a location for innovative, technology-led businesses. The cluster includes around 4,500 firms with an annual turnover of around £6bn, of which circa £3.6bn is exported. 3 The history of the McLaren Campus 3.1 The McLaren Campus is located just under 3km (as the crow flies) north east of Woking town centre, and is accessed off the A320 at the Paragon Roundabout. The site comprises of the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) and McLaren Production Centre (MPC), and benefits from an extant permission for the McLaren Applied Technology Centre (MATC). The campus also contains formal landscaped areas, parking and open parkland. The open parkland consists of a man-made landscape located west of the main development, which is publicly accessible. A public right of way (PROW footpath 1) also runs through the site in a north-south direction. 3.2 The planning history of the campus dates back to the mid 1990’s, when planning permission PLAN/1995/0641 was granted for an c. 37,160sq m corporate headquarters with research, development and automotive production (MTC). The MTC has been open and operational since 2003 (15 years). Following this, McLaren then established its own road-going sports car range (McLaren Automotive) which required a bespoke production facility. Planning permission PLAN/2009/0440 for the MPC, comprising 37,838sq m of floor space was subsequently granted in September 2009. McLaren’s continued growth and success, including within divergent sectors through McLaren Applied Technologies, 5 meant that further floor space and facilities were required, which resulted in planning permission PLAN/2014/1297 being granted in March 2016 for the MATC, comprising 52,000sq m for an aerodynamic research facility, workshops, research and development space, offices, meeting rooms, teaching and training space, and vehicle preparation and assembly space. 3.3 The plans set out below show the ‘as built’ and ‘as permitted’ development at the campus. As is clear from these plans, and from the floor areas summarised within the table below (figure 3), the site benefits from a significant level of development, all of which has demonstrated on multiple occasions and across varying national and local planning policy contexts, that very special circumstances exist to justify development within the Green Belt. Figure 1: Site plan as built 6 Figure 2: Site plan as approved Figure 3: Summary of extent of development Campus Floor area (GIA) Sq m development MTC c. 37,160 MPC c. 37,838 MATC c. 52,000 Total c. 126,998 4 Justification for allocating the McLaren Campus 4.1 McLaren considers that given the site’s long and established development history, including the continued demonstration of very special circumstances, the unique nature of the group of companies and McLaren’s local, regional and national significance, that there is a clear and demonstrable rationale for the campus to now be formally recognised in the Local Plan. 4.2 In fact, the very special circumstances that were tested and accepted by the Secretary of State in granting permission for the MTC in 1996 still prevail, and in some respects can be considered stronger and more pertinent today. These relate to: • The unique nature of McLaren and its operational needs • The track-record and reliability of McLaren • The quality and excellence McLaren promotes in all its products and operations • The important symbiotic relationship between McLaren and Woking whereby they depend upon each other for economic investment and a skilled workforce.

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