PLANS have been revealed to build up to 400 homes, offices and shops on the former Didcot A Power Station, weeks after the cooling towers were demolished.

National development consultant Pegasus has asked Vale of White Horse District Council for its opinion on the scheme.

It hopes to use the site for housing and more than 100,000 square metres of shops, offices and warehouses.

The firm submitted its ideas to redevelop the site to the Vale on August 13, and said the site will be ready to redevelop early next year.

Pegasus director Gary Lees said: “This is a mixed-use redevelopment proposal – employment, general industrial warehousing, offices, residential and retail.”

RWE npower, which previously owned the site, signed a deal to sell 47 hectares of it to the Clowes development group for an undisclosed sum in April. But in principle, any developer could submit a speculative planning application for the site without owning it, then bid to develop it.

RWE npower is due to hand the site over to Crowes later this year, once the clear-up is finished following the demolition of the three cooling towers on Sunday, July 27.

Didcot Town Council leader Eleanor Hards said she and other town councillors did not want to see any residential development on the site.

She said: “We are not keen to see housing there because it is isolated from other residential areas in Didcot. You would be surrounded by small industrial use.

“We would rather see all-commercial use on the site.”

She went on: “I wouldn’t want to live somewhere out on a limb like that, it has very poor pedestrian and cycling routes to the rest of town. I’m just thinking of people having to get into their cars just to go to the shops.”

The Vale district council’s core policy for the site states that 29 hectares should be used for employment.

Planning officers are due to decide on Pegasus’s proposals by September 3.

It is expected that the council would then advise the company on submitting a full planning application.

The coal-powered station, which had been operating for 42 years, closed in March last year under EU moves to cut carbon emissions.

RWE npower still owns the rest of the Didcot A station, while the gas-fired Didcot B station is unaffected by the deal.

Three of the six 325ft cooling towers at the A site were demolished by contractors Coleman and Company at 5.01am on Sunday, July 27.

Some 32,000 tonnes of rubble and dust was collected by clean-up workers, to be used when the site is redeveloped.

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