You may have received another flyer recently from Dido Property Limited (Guernsey), branded as Marlow Film Studio, which contains a “fact check”. It’s worthy of a fantasy film.
Here is the reality to their claims:
The jobs created will not go to locals and the benefits will not be felt in the local economy.
Dido Property Limited (Guernsey)/Marlow Film Studio is proposing a facility rental model. They will have absolutely no say on who gets hired or from where, by the renters. Facility maintenance and security jobs are likely to be outsourced to giant contractors at the cheapest rate.
There is no guarantee any traineeships for local schools, will actually get delivered. And will the traineeships be in property from the developers? They are not film makers and have never run a film studio!
The company won’t pay taxes in the UK or give back to the local community.
Dido Property Limited (Guernsey) will extract rent from companies, on which it won’t pay any UK taxes. Why would they register the property company in Guernsey, where they neither live or operate, unless to take advantage of the tax laws?
The studio will stop the Little Marlow Lakes Country Park.
Removal of 90 acres of green open space enjoyed by many, from the designated Country Park area, to create an industrial warehouse landscape will definitely impact the entire area. This land was designated for the benefit of the community. Dido Property Ltd (Guernsey) are trying to ignore the adopted Local Plan for financial gain. A mechanism and funding for delivery of the Country Park already exists.
The site will get flipped for housing once planning is granted.
If the planning application is approved, the greenbelt protection is removed and it will be open to speculative planning applications or modifications in the future (see precedents from Bray or Pinewood). The directors of Dido Property Limited (Guernsey) might decide to cash in and sell the land with planning application to a third party, who could build something quite different.
The studio will destroy wildlife and biodiversity.
The area is not ‘low-grade infill’ as described, but wildlife rich habitat supporting many priority and protected species. The developers own ecological statements confirm this, as well as indicate that net gain biodiversity cannot be achieved on site. They have not detailed where the mitigation will be delivered, so most likely they plan to pay money into an off-setting habitat bank – not an acceptable practice, as local populations will simply die.
There will be thousands of extra car and HGV movements on the A404.
The Transport Assessment in the planning application details the thousands of extra vehicle movements. National Highways have objected to the development for good reason. It’s pie in the sky thinking, to expect 40% to use public transport, when less than 2% do so at Pinewood. Once the planned bus service is demonstrated to be unviable, it will be stopped too.
Conclusion: object to the PR smoke and mirrors
The portal is seemingly still accepting responses, so please object and spread the word among friends and family to do the same.