The Health Secretary Matt Hancock repeatedly urged fellow Conservative ministers to block a plan in his constituency to build 400 homes and a primary school, claiming it would damage the horse racing industry.
His opposition to the development came as senior figures in horse racing leading the opposition made financial donations to him.
Rachel Hood, then the Conservative mayor of Newmarket, and her husband John Gosden, a prominent horseracing trainer who gave evidence opposing the scheme at the public inquiry, each gave Hancock £10,000 in December 2018 and May last year respectively.
Tattersalls, the racehorse valuers and auctioneers based in Newmarket, who were also prominent opponents of the housing development on behalf of the racing industry, have consistently donated money for Hancock’s office, including £15,000 in May 2010 when he was first elected as MP for the West Suffolk constituency, and £10,000 in May last year.
The development, proposed by the landowner Lord Derby at Hatchfield Farm in Newmarket, includes building 400 homes, 30% of them affordable, a new primary school and office or other employment space.
Commitments were given to manage any increase in traffic that might affect the movement of thoroughbred racehorses to their training gallops in the town, which is described as “the HQ” of flat racing.
In July 2015 the scheme was recommended for approval by a planning inspector who decided after a public inquiry that “the risk to the horse racing industry is very small”.
Two months later, Hancock wrote to the then housing minister, Brandon Lewis, maintaining that the development would damage the industry and should be rejected for its “exceptional negative economic impact on the local economy”.
Sajid Javid, then Conservative secretary of state for communities and local government, blocked the project in August 2016.
However, Javid’s decision was overturned by the High Court in 2017, in a judgment that described it as “a complete and unexplained volte face” from a previous favourable government assessment of the plans, noting the inspector’s finding that there was a clear need for more housing in Newmarket.
Hancock nevertheless wrote to Javid after that judgment, again urging that the development be halted.
He also wrote to the then housing minister James Brokenshire in July 2018, stressing his opposition to the scheme.
Following another public inquiry last year whose inspector again approved the development, Hancock wrote to the current secretary of state, Robert Jenrick, in September, attaching the legal case made by the horse racing industry to oppose the scheme.