Issue - meetings

Members considered an application for the erection of a new single storey retail unit, including associated hard and soft landscaping within the site boundary at land off Stallingborough Road, Keelby DN41 8JA.

The Planning Officer provided a verbal update to this item:

·         Condition 9 of the recommendations contained a number of infrastructure features which may cause problems in achieving the design and extent of the footpath leading to the proposed store.  Work was still ongoing with this condition, but Committee support for the development was still recommended with the caveat of a deferral to officers to allow the Planning authority to maintain control, whilst also allowing the applicant time to discuss the aspect.  In the officer’s opinion, this would lead to a successful resolution.  If this could not be resolved, the application would have to return to Committee;

·         Condition 3, which contained information on contamination had been updated following a conversation with Environmental Health colleagues at West Lindsey District Council.  This indicated that the area of concern related to the access road in the former farmyard area, rather than the whole site.

Condition 3 would therefore read ‘No development of the access road shall take place……..’ rather than ‘No development shall take place…………..’;

·         Additional consultee responses had been received from neighbours from Riby Road, Eastfield Road and Dixon Close; none of these consultees raised additional comments that hadn’t already been considered in the report.  One letter of support from Dixon Close had been received.

The only speaker on this item was Matthew Wilkinson, a Development Manager at Lincoln Co-operative (Co-op), the applicant.  He raised the following points:

·         The Co-op wanted to focus on:

o   Providing valued services;

o   Growing the local economy;

o   Health and wellbeing;

o   Looking after the local environment.

·         The Co-op sought to provide a store in Keelby to meet these values and had recently developed similar schemes in West Lindsey;

·         The application sought to construct a single storey store with a modern shopping environment;

·         The store would offer a selection of ‘on the go’ foods amongst other items;

·         There were severe reservations from the Co-op about condition 9 relating to the footpath.  The wording was a big concern as there were too many unknown risks on land that was beyond the applicant’s control and there would be unknown costs.  Also required would be the demolition of the farm building.

There was adequate opportunity to cross using the existing road network, and this had been advised by a Planning Consultant employed by the applicant, who in turn referred to paragraph 55 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Members were asked to consider the application minus condition 9.  If this was deemed unacceptable, then there would be further discussions with West Lindsey District Council (WLDC) Planning Officers;

·         In summary, the Co-op wanted to provide a food store with parking spaces.  The store would employ 15 staff recruited from the local area.

The Planning Officer responded to the public speaker only to say that condition 9 requiring  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55