The parties involved in the Willow Brook Centre’s appeal against a decision to refuse planning permission for additional development at the town centre site have been making their final written submissions to the Planning Inspectorate.

The centre wants to build two new drive-through food and drink units (foreseen to be occupied by McDonald’s and Starbucks) and is also seeking outline permission to add two new units to the existing retail terrace (beyond Poundstretcher), with an associated reconfiguration of the car park.

The proposals have proved controversial because of the proximity of the drive-through units to residential properties in Wheatfield Drive, with the single-storey Starbucks being just 22m away from the nearest dwelling. The adjacent two-storey McDonald’s building would be 50m distant.

The centre has taken the case to appeal after two different planning committees at South Gloucestershire Council refused permission on the grounds that allowing it would result in “a harmful concentration of food and drink uses resulting in a prejudicial impact on residential amenity due to noise, general disturbance, fumes, smells, and late night activity”. It was also ruled that the proposals “fail to promote the economic, social and environmental character of the area”.

Following on from the submission of the appellant’s ‘statement of case’ (reported in a previous article), an ‘appeal statement’ has now been submitted by consultants acting on behalf of the council.

The two parties have also agreed a ‘statement of common ground’, which confirms that the reasons for refusal relate only to the two proposed food and drink units, i.e. the proposed retail terrace expansion is acceptable to the council.

In the statement, the council confirms that the general principle of building two drive-through food and drinks units at some location within the town centre site is acceptable. It is also agreed that proximity to schools does not relate to any aspect of the reasons for refusal.

The parties are also agreed that “the proposals would not be harmful based on the number and distribution of food and drink units at the Willow Brook Centre or wider area of Bradley Stoke”.

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Agents acting on behalf of Bradley Stoke’s Willow Brook shopping centre have lodged an appeal against South Gloucestershire Council’s decision to refuse planning permission for two new drive-through food and drink units (foreseen to be occupied by McDonald’s and Starbucks) and two new retail units at the town centre site.

The controversial planning application, submitted in March 2018, was first denied permission by the local authority’s Development Management Committee in February 2019 and then again in March 2019 by the higher-level Spatial Planning Committee.

Officers at South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) had originally recommended that the application be approved, but it was ‘called in’ for a decision to be made by council members.

With one of the proposed food drink units being located only 22m from the nearest residential property in Wheatfield Drive at its closet point, councillors decided there would be “prejudicial impact on residential amenity due to noise, general disturbance, fumes, smells, and late night activity”. They also said the proposals “failed to promote the economic, social and environmental character of the area”.

News of the appeal surfaced in early July when a Planning Inspectorate appeal application form dated 28th June 2019 appeared on the council’s planning portal.

The appellant originally requested that the appeal be determined by way of a hearing, and the case officer at the Planning Inspectorate initially announced that this would indeed be the procedure used. However, in a letter dated 7th August, she explained that, after further consideration, the alternative procedure of ‘written representations’ would now be used as a hearing could not be justified, stating: “… although there are a lot of interested parties, the issues are not particularly complicated and the council have indicated that they will not be submitting anything very technical, therefore a hearing is not justified and this appeal will now proceed by way of written representation…”

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People and organisations interested in making representations for consideration by the inspector who will decide the appeal against refusal of planning permission for development at the Willow Brook Centre have until Wednesday this week (21st August) to submit their written statements.

The appealed decision relates to permission for two new drive-through food and drink units (foreseen to be occupied by McDonald’s and Starbucks) and two new retail units at the Bradley Stoke town centre site.

The deadline comes five weeks after the appeal was officially lodged and validated in mid-July.

The appellant originally requested that the appeal be determined by way of a hearing, and the case officer at the Planning Inspectorate initially announced that this would indeed be the procedure used. However, in a letter dated 7th August, she explained that, after further consideration, the alternative procedure of ‘written representations’ would now be used as a hearing could not be justified:

“…We have applied the criteria and considered all representations received, including the appellant’s preferred choice. We consider that the written representations procedure is the most suitable for this appeal for the following reason(s): Under section 319a of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the inspector having reviewed all evidence has stated that although there are a lot of interested parties, the issues are not particularly complicated and the council have indicated that they will not be submitting anything very technical, therefore a hearing is not justified and this appeal will now proceed by way of written representation…”

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Agents acting on behalf of Bradley Stoke’s Willow Brook shopping centre have lodged an appeal against South Gloucestershire Council’s decision to refuse planning permission for two new drive-through food and drink units (foreseen to be occupied by McDonald’s and Starbucks) and two new retail units at the town centre site.

The controversial planning application, submitted in March 2018, was first denied permission by the local authority’s Development Management Committee in February 2019 and then again in March 2019 by the higher-level Spatial Planning Committee.

Officers at South Gloucestershire Council had originally recommended that the application be approved, but it was ‘called in’ for a decision to be made by council members.

An appeal application form dated 28th June 2019 has recently been published on the council’s planning portal, however, at the time of writing, it has not yet appeared as a live case on the Planning Inspectorate website.

The applicant has requested that the appeal be determined by way of a hearing (which the Journal understands would be open to the press and public).

The Spatial Planning Committee’s grounds for refusing the application, which will be scrutinised by the appointed planning inspector, were:

The proposed development, if permitted, would result in a harmful concentration of food and drink uses resulting in a prejudicial impact on residential amenity due to noise, general disturbance, fumes, smells, and late night activity. The proposed development is therefore contrary to policy PSP8 and PSP35 of the South Gloucestershire Local Plan: Policies, Sites and Places Plan (Adopted) November 2017.

Furthermore, the application is contrary to the three objectives in paragraph 8 of the National Planning Policy Framework (February 2019) in that the development fails to promote the economic, social and environmental character of the area.

To read the full history of the case, visit our Planning Applications of Note page or the archive of posts with the PT18/1491/O tag.

UPDATE (29th July 2019)

The Planning Inspectorate case reference is APP/P0119/W/19/3232136.

The deadline for statements and interested party comments is 21st August 2019.

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