The HONDA plant site will not be used for houses, even when the Japanese car company leaves, if Swindon Borough Council has its way.

A new policy will be put to the authority's planning committee at its meeting next week to maintain the site, officially known as South Marston airfield, as designated for employment land.

The policy has been put together by the planning department lead by Councillor Gary Sumner, the cabinet member for strategic planning.

He said: "We want to have this in the local plan, which is being revised, as employment land.

"We are in a changing employment landscape, and we don't want to be too prescriptive - if we said that it had to be used as a high quality car manufacturing plant, there might not be any companies who want to take it on.

"We do want the land to be used to bring jobs for the people of Swindon. We have sufficient housing coming forward elsewhere and wouldn't want to use the site for that."

The council's cabinet member for economy and place, Councillor Oliver Donachie pointed out that the site remains Honda's private property: "It's still in Honda's hands, and we'll be talking to the company about its plans, and whether it would want to support our proposals

"But we are being asked by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in Whitehall to come up with our own industrial strategy, and we would want to use the site as part of our strategy for the economic future for the town."

The policy in the report to the committee says: "In total the site is 152 hectares, although approximately only half the site is developed, with the remainder consisting of the former airstrip (currently used for parking vehicles), vacant land, landscaping and flood alleviation.

"The lawful use of the site is general industrial uses and will remain as such on closure of the plant, until such time as an alternative use is permitted."

It adds that an assessment of 36 employment sites across the borough by Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners, a leading London planning consultancy, in 2017 found the site to be the best in the area, along with four others, with a score of 28 out of a possible maximum of 30.

In the current local plan the land is considered a 'key employment site' and the policy is that use should be preserved.

As part of the revision of the local plan, that could be beefed up: "It is proposed to strengthen the policy in relation to the Honda Site by identifying it as a ‘core employment site’, at which proposals for alternative uses other than employment use and employment generating ‘sui generis’ uses will not be supported unless there is an exceptional justification."

The report addresses the possibility of the land being used for housing. It acknowledges that Swindon Borough Council does not have an identified five-year housing land supply.

But it says that shouldn't mean the land should be used for houses: "The revised national planning policy framework emphasises that ‘substantial weight’ should be given to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements for ‘homes and other identified needs.’ It is not considered that the overall land supply is constrained to the extent that brownfield sites of this size should be realised for housing."

It adds that if the council doesn't adopt a policy on the site, it could weaken its position when it comes to making decisions of applications for the site.

The planning committee will meet at 6pm on Tuesday August 13 at the council chamber in Euclid Street. The public may attend.