DEVELOPMENT plans for Dorchester’s Marabout industrial estate, and others in the town, should be drawn up to shape their future.

Town councillors say there still is a demand for manufacturing and trade skills in the county town – but that it might be better to actively plan ahead.

Their call comes after a planning appeal was lodged over proposals to convert a former historic military hospital on the estate into homes. The developers are claiming that the application should be decided by a planning inspector after Dorset Council failed to come to a conclusion on the application within a reasonable time. Those behind the proposal say they had tried to find new tenants for the building, but failed, so turned to housing as an alternative.

The application has raised the issue of what uses are acceptable on industrial estates and whether there are any planning documents to guide policy.

Said Cllr Gareth Jones: “Before I retired, and went straight into lockdown, I had held several meetings with the head of planning and most of the planners think it’s a ridiculous suggestion to put housing in the centre of an industrial estate, but recognise that they have an indefensible position because at the moment they have no master plan for development, or upgrading of the Marabout Estate…

“I think they hoped to tough it out on this one and gain time, if I understand rightly, to put together a plan to regenerate the economic activity of the Marabout estate. Like me they thought that Dorchester couldn’t be a town without some fundamental engineering, manufacturing or basic trade areas. It has to be preserved and they want time to put together a masterplan,” he said.

Support for the idea came from Cllrs Les Fry, Stella Jones and Molly Rennie.

Cllr Fry told the online town council planning committee that it would be useful to have a development plan for the Marabout and other industrial sites in the county town and that Dorset Council should be encouraged to develop the idea.