Campaigners fighting a proposal to build a rum cask maturation facility and visitor centre on United Downs Raceway have welcomed a decision to grant conditional outline planning permission for a research and development centre across the road.

The organisers of stock car racing at United Downs are opposed to the building of the maturation facility, which is currently going through the planning process, on the raceway site which would mean the end of racing there after 50 years.

The granted conditional outline permission, with conditions attached, is for Celsius – a Sustainable Distillery Research Centre – to be built on the hard edge of the former United Downs landfill site.

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Crispen Rosevear of Purple Cornwall Ltd, organisers of the stock car racing at the United Downs Raceway, said: “This is thrilling news for the area, to recognise that the developers have renewed their faith in being able to utilise the landfill site.

"Having announced in the planning application for a rum warehouse on the other side of the road, on World Heritage site land, that feasibility studies, risk assessments, drafting plans and an engineering solution to tackle landfill subsidence, gas migration and the extensive subsurface mineshaft legacy had concluded the capped landfill site was not feasible or viable, it is heartening to learn that the developers have worked so diligently on siting their research centre on that very same pocket of land.

"This would suggest a remarkable geological turnaround, as the land on the landfill site was noted as insufficiently stable during the developer's presentation to Gwennap Parish Council in November 2020. Doubtless, the local residents will be comforted to know that the land has stabilised during the past four months."

This conditional approval is separate from another application to build an ultra high-tech biome on the raceway site which is still going through the planning process. The company's outline planning application for a rum cask maturation facility and visitor centre still awaits consideration by Cornwall Council planners

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The future of the United Downs Raceway has been cast in doubt after plans were revealed for a rum warehouse to be constructed on the land they used for meetings. Initially, the developers had been directed towards the landfill site, but in November 2020, they lodged a planning application to move their project on to the other side of the road, which could have led to the raceway being destroyed, despite having been in existence for more than 50 years.

Campaigners hope that the rum cask maturation facility and visitor centre will not now go-ahead.