More planning applications of interest
Morrisons Supermarket
24th January 2008
Well the application was granted on the 24th Jan and personally I am more than a little worried but I will have to wait and see what happens.
21st December 2007
Well they are back with a reworked application and you will need a lot of patience if you want to read the planning documents, one document consists of fifty separate individual pages. (Amber Valley have promised this will get better very soon) To summerise; it's the same application as last time with the car park extended onto the flood plane, out over the current public footpath and right to the edge of their land, to the inch by the looks of the plans!
Full details of the planning application are available from the Amber Valley Planning Registration Page of there web site, search for "Morrison". The menu for accessing the associated documents is at the bottom of the page below the "Return to List" Button. (Don‘t try to use Firefox it won‘t work with parts of this site, the Microsoft software driving the site is "Broken"!)
This is big, an increase of twenty percent in store floor space. To get an idea of the size of the extension look at the red bit in the picture above. Half the parking down the side of the store is gone. The red bit does not look as big as it really is because part of the store front covers about a third of the extension.
This is a place I don’t go on Saturdays because of traffic and parking problems and it is only going to get worse, a twenty percent increase in floor space presumably will get translated into a twenty percent increase in business and all with no increase in the number of car parking spaces. Can you see an empty parking space in the photograph?
The new layout for the car park looks much better until you realise it is built out onto the flood plane. The boundary level is going to be maintained so the flood water can come over the car park but flood planes are as much about providing areas for water to soak into as providing space above ground for the water to run over. Tarmac does not allow water to soak in, it causes run off which make matters worse! Further, they are claiming to be improving the flood capability by removing some of the infill done when the original store was built.
The existing public footpath (public right of way) is apparently just buried under the tarmac but there is to be gated access to allow passage through the car park area. Walking the dog across a busy car park and through gates, which will presumably be locked to stop the boy racers getting easy and direct access onto the meadow, will be "fun". The boundary of the car park will also be fenced to stop the same boy racers from just driving over the kerb stones and onto the meadow. Further, to my eyes it looks like they intend to fence ground that does not belong to them!
A twenty percent increase in business will presumably equate to a twenty percent increase in traffic going to and from the store. This area of Belper regularly gets grid locked at peak times. Cars and lorries end up queuing from the car park and petrol forecourt back to the island and block the A6. The area is of so much concern that when the old oil depot site was converted into flats and houses the builders had to agree to pay for all sorts of modifications and traffic management before the planning application was granted. The increase in traffic from that site will be small compared with the increase associated with this proposal.
The photographs provided with the application as you might expect show a virtually empty car park and a very restricted view of the site that gives no idea of the impact the changes will have on the environment of the access currently available to us the local people.
Judge the stupidity of parts of this submission; a tree is to be kept in an area that will be retained by about a wall between one and two meters high. Not to bad until you realise something approaching a third of its roots will have to be removed so it will probably die or will it just have to be cut down because it is no longer safe like one at the other end of town.
In my opinion if you don‘t like the Tesco proposal you should be vermently opposed to this one.
Update 28th Dec - The Plans in more detail
The image above is a copy of the submitted plan which I have coloured to make easier to understand. The pale blue is the existing store, the red the extension, the green is the new car parking and the purple the tree which will probably be killed during the alterations, other trees bigger and smaller have just been removed. The red also represents around three quarters of the lost parking, the rest extends in a straight line up to the store front. The public right of way is yellow and runs through the new parking area. The ground to the right of the public right of way on the plan is elevated 1 to 1.5m where the site was raised to accommodate the original store, to the left is slightly lower rough flat meadow to the river.
So assuming the new level is that of the rough meadow the existing right of way and any archaeology associated with it will be removed, destroyed. If not the level of the meadow part will have to be raised!
The northern (top) and eastern (left) boundaries of the new parking area will have a retaining wall as must the tree, even to pay lip service to its survival. The yellow rectangle to the right again is the sloping bit to connect the old and the new together. So to bring your trolley to this part of the car park you will fight it down a slope with the cars or a very long way round on a hopefully more gentle path, either way not very cleaver.
Having read the papers again my main objections are the reduction in the meadows ability to soak up water and the increased traffic and congestion in the area. The water absorption could be addressed by using a different surface but I do not see a way to solve the traffic and congestion problems.
Update 29th Dec - The Southern Car Park Boundary
I have just walked the site and spotted a couple more things I don‘t like; The plans show the new southern edge of the car park being straight and moved south by about two meters onto the bank of Coppice Brook. This probably means a retaining wall for the edge of the car park and a restriction to the brooks ability to carry flood water. That water will probably flow out over the rugby pitch and cause damage there but why should it?
The picture on the left shows the footbridge over Coppice Brook looking back from the Rugby Club grounds. The building on the right behind the small tree is the current Morrison Store, the tree is on the very edge of the brook. The current car park edge is just in front of the silver car. The concrete post in the centre of the picture is on the end of the foot bridge and probably just about the middle of the new gates, on the very edge of the car park. Assuming the level adopted for the new car park surface is that of the meadow the path is at least a foot up, so you will step down onto the tarmac, if not the meadow will have been raised. Sorry I could not find a better location from which to take the picture.
The retained tree is the one just by the lamp post behind the tree I first pointed out in the previous paragraph, just to the left of the silver car. The largest tree is on the meadow and is the one that forms a V mid–left of the picture, it is at least twice the size of the retained tree and is one of around ten simply removed. I could be wrong but I thought trees could not be removed without informing the planning athoraties.
23rd October 2007
Today I received an email from Amber Valley telling us that Morrisons withdrew this application yesterday; a small victory for common sense.
Watchout they will be back with a new revised application.
15th October 2007
Morrisons have a planning application in to extend there store and warehouse, the details are available from the Amber Valley Planning Registration Page of there web site, search for "Morrison". The menu for accessing the associated documents is, very intuitively, below the "Return to List" Button. (A classic example of how not to do it.)
However, in summary, this is big, to me it looks like an increase of 20% in store floor space for a decrease in car parking of around 23 spaces and because of a crazy layout a considerable increase in difficulty to find a parking space. To get an idea look at the red bit in the picture above. Around half the parking down the side of the store is gone. The red bit does not look as big as it really is because part of the store front covers part of the extension.
This is a place I don’t go on Saturdays because of the parking problems and it is only going to get much worse if they get planning permission.
I have formally objected to this proposal because of the reasons above, along with the poor traffic flow in the area. You can make your own comment or objection and consider the documents presented from the menu mentioned in the paragraph above.
The Brettles Site - Refused 15th Nov
I have discovered two planning applications for the Brettles site both proposing 19 dwellings. This seems to be a very large number in a quite small site but I guess is not untypical of the new developments going on in town and in line with goverment targets. I don’t think I would want to live in them but I don’t have to.
If you go hunting the application put Brettles into the address field and open the date up to start say January 2007 that should find it. Remember use the Lookup button and not carriage return, it gets me every time.
So unless the application is rejected because the planners object to loosing the existing building this site will be of no further part of or interest to the battle with Tescos.
Update, I have just walked past the Brettles site and I cannot object to three stories the building to the left is... well two and a half stories and the one behind is three, so fair do’s. Have a look at the poor photo composite above and make up your own mind.