Second consultation planned over new homes and country park proposal at Pinewood Stud in Newmarket

Two years after it launched a community consultation about how it could help to shape the future of its historic home, the Jockey Club is set to hold a second exhibition linked to its plans for housing at Pinewood Stud in Newmarket’s Hamilton Road.

Amy Starkey, managing director of the Jockey Club, and a town councillor, told her fellow councillors at a meeting on Tuesday the next stage of the Playing Our Part public consultation would be held in a meeting room at the White Hart Hotel in Newmarket on September 19 and 20.

“We want as many people to attend as possible,” she said, “as this is an important follow on to the consultation held in March 2022.”

The latest forum comes 10 months after the latest blueprint for Newmarket’s development over the next 20 years, gave the green light for around 415 new homes at Pinewood Stud.The homes’ plan, coupled with a 75-acre country park, had been outlined at the first public exhibition held at the town’s memorial and the results of the four-week consultation which followed saw 76 per cent of respondents supporting the idea.

More than 300 people attended the exhibition, and the project website was visited more than 2,500 times during the consultation period which ran until the end of April 2022.

The Jockey Club then submitted its proposal for consideration in the West Suffolk Council Local Plan and in November last year it was included at the expense of further expansion of the Hatchfield Farm development in Fordham Road.

As well as the homes and country park, the Jockey Club outlined concepts for a cinema to be built in the Subscription Rooms, the former home of the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket High Street, plus an all -weather racehorse training facility and race track.