Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Chalmers, Dance, Marshall, McNaughton and Reay.

There were no declarations of interest.

Report by Head of Planning and Regulatory Services

The Chair welcomed everyone present to the meeting and invited the Committee to introduce themselves.

The Area Manager, Customer Services advised the Chair seven further letters of support and one letter of objection had been submitted since the agenda for this meeting had been issued. These were set out in supplementary report no.3 dated 7^th April 2011. Having noted that these further letters of representation raised no new issues it was agreed to circulate the aforesaid report.

The Area Manager, Customer Services outlined the procedure that would be followed during the meeting and invited those who wished to address the Committee to identify themselves.

Planning Authority

The Area Team Leader, Development Management advised that the application before the Committee was for the erection of Class 1 food store with associated development to include car parking, access road, road bridge, petrol filling station and engineering works on the existing Walkers Garden Centre and land at the rear.  The application is for  Planning Permission in Principle which used to be outline planning permission.  Major development should explain proposals and take the views of the public, this has been done.  The application has been supported by pre-application consultation report and consultation report stage II, design and access statement, planning and retail statement, transport assessment, flood risk assessment and site flooding/sustainable drainage overview study and an ecology report.  There are no objections from Consultees which can’t be addressed by planning conditions.  There has been 915 letters of objection and 1091 letters of support of which many are standard letters.  The application site lies within the Main Town settlement zone of Dunoon, as defined in the Argyll and Bute Local Plan.  The application site included the eastern half of Potential Development Area 2/5 ‘Dunloskin’ that is identified in the Local Plan for medium density housing with 25% affordability.  The Area Team Leader spoke on the Retail Statement advising that the available expenditure in Dunoon catchment is £74million, the convenience expenditure is £32million and ¹/₃ of the locally derived expenditure is ‘leaked’ out with the catchment.  The proposed store will have a turnover of £17.8m comprising £12.9m convenience and £4.8m comparison goods.  The trade diversion to the town centre is £3.1m and if you base this on the larger store it will reduce the convenience leakage from £11m to £4m therefore if you build a bigger store it will stop people from leaving Dunoon to shop.  A smaller foodstore may meet policy criteria and be sequentially preferable, the overall impact of 9.1% is considered significant and he recommends that planning permission be refused for the reasons set out in the report.

Applicant

Mr Bruce Weir said CWP are a Scottish based development company specialising in food stores for rural areas.  He said they had obtained planning permission for stores in Kelso and Kirriemuir. Mr Weir advised that his company works with the 5 major supermarkets (ASDA, Morrison’s, CWS, Sainsbury’s and Tesco) and that 3 of these operators are under scope for a 40,000sq.ft. store with good car parking and a filling station.  Mr Weir said that Dunoon has a large population, very many of whom spend their money outwith the area and it was realised that the demand and money was going to Inverclyde and beyond.  Mr Weir spoke on site selection advising that they having analysed the town and the catchment area and the optimum store size had been determined to be 40-45,000sq.ft. with car park and filling station.  He advised that the Walker family store will be relocated into Dunoon and that the proposed development would not adversely affect the housing development at Dunloskin Farm.  He said the foodstore would be a catalyst for the housing in terms of the provision of a bridge over the Milton Burn.  Mr Weir spoke on the new planning legislation advising that he had undertaken public consultation, commencing in January 2010, three months prior to the planning application being submitted, and continued until today.  He had an online petition and a Facebook page along with job creations with Jobcentre plus and has over 2000 names of support. Mr Weir said he was confused over the amount of objections because at the PPSL meeting there had only been 30 objections, 95% of which object to the non-food goods that are currently sold in the high street. Mr Weir asserted that there is capacity for further non-food retail in Dunoon.

Mr Alex Mitchell said he was a planning adviser for James Barr. He advised that the Planning Service’s approach to the Campbeltown supermarket development gave him some comfort, but that the same approach has not been used in respect of the Dunoon proposal.  Mr Mitchell said that the key factors of the planning permission in Campbeltown are the same as Dunoon.  He referred to the reasons for refusal set out in the report, saying that significant weight is given to the National Grid site, but the fact that this area exists is not enough, it has to be available.  He asserted that  the National Grid site is neither better nor suitable. The Retail Impact Assessment must be able to show the alternative site is able to do the same as that proposed.  The National Grid site has a major flooding issue, it would only fit a 20,000sqft store and doesn’t have a petrol station.  Mr Mitchell said the size of the store is key, Cowal has significant leakage of £11m per annum and this size of store will arrest this leakage by clawing back £7m.  Mr Mitchell said the applicant has agreed a contribution towards the CHORD project.  He referred to the loss of affordable housing, advising that the applicant is happy to address the shortfall by way of commuted payment. Mr Mitchell said that all of the issues raised in the reasons for refusal could be addressed by conditions. 

Mr Weir said that the main contactor for the building of the store will sub-contract to firms in the local area.  He said at the moment  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.