Agenda item

To determine the application.

Nick Harding presented the report to members and drew attention to the update report that had been circulated.

Members received a presentation, in accordance with the public participation procedure, from Martin Robeson and Karen Crowder-James, objectors. Mr Robeson advised members that he was representing Tesco and whilst Aldi may assert that he is there to reasonably prevent competition this is not correct as he feels their scheme has severe risks to pedestrian safety and will create unacceptable traffic congestion, both having important public interest consequences. He expressed the view that a big problem is the real likelihood that the County Council MATS scheme will not come forward so in the interim there is a do nothing response, just build the store and hope that the traffic congestion and chaos is not too bad and leave the ¼ million pounds for a lesser alternative in the bank.

Mr Robeson expressed the view that this should be especially worrying to members as there is already congestion tailing back from the A141 onto Hostmoor Avenue all the way to the Tesco roundabout and Aldi’s exit solution for customer traffic magnifies the problem as they do not have enough land or initiative to design a scheme where traffic can turn right out of Aldi for the many people wanting to go west as Hostmoor Avenue is not wide enough. He stated that as shoppers will not be able to turn right out of Aldi they will have to go left and all the way around the Tesco roundabout and then go back past Aldi westwards.

Mr Robeson expressed the opinion that this is a serious problem with 35% of Aldi shoppers, their figures, will be linking their trip with Tesco and Tesco is on the opposite side of the roundabout, with many shoppers walking across the road but crossing roads at roundabouts is unsatisfactory and unsafe and introducing signal-controlled facilities is not possible as traffic would just tail back all around the roundabout. He feels that pedestrians will take their luck in identifying gaps in the traffic and with every Aldi customer car having to turn left, with the driver looking right to identify a gap in that traffic, pedestrians crossing the road immediately to the left are “sitting ducks” so, in his view, the only sensible option is to refuse the application, it is premature until it is known that the MATS solution is available and even with MATS the pedestrian crossing facilities for shoppers would fail the NPPF requirement that there must not be an unacceptable impact on highway safety.

Ms Crowder-James stated that she represents Cambridge Property Group and her client has severe concerns about the acceptability of the application, specifically in terms of its compliance with national and local retail and transport policies together with safety and traffic capacity issues relating to the proposal. She expressed the view that the level of combined convenience retail impact is predicted to be 19.5%, which is recognised by the Council’s retail consultants to be of concern, this is the only scenario given the recent withdrawal of the alternative scheme for a Westry retail park and the implications of which should be given further consideration, with the significant adverse impact being the reason this application fails the retail impact test required by the NPPF.

Ms Crowder-James expressed the opinion that the first consultation response by the County Council required the Aldi signal scheme to be a permanent solution and it would need to operate within or better than 4 cars capacity failing that an alternative solution should be proposed and nothing changed apart from a financial contribution from Aldi to County for a MATS scheme, which is assumed to be the alternative solution as the Aldi proposals are over capacity and unsafe. She stated that County originally proposed that if the MATS signals were delivered prior to Aldi opening £250,000 would be paid, they have given themselves two years from the opening of Aldi to complete these works, however, her client owns all of the land required for any Hostmoor junction improvement and they will categorically not sell any land to the County meaning they will have to use a CPO.

Ms Crowder-James stated her client has already been legally advised a CPO would fail for several reasons, one being that the County Council cannot use a CPO to make a private development which is unacceptable in highway terms acceptable, therefore, there is no certainty that County can deliver the MATS scheme and Aldi could open with no highway mitigation works taking place, particularly as there is no condition or trigger to require Aldi signals to be constructed. She expressed the opinion that with no highway mitigations, this will lead to severe congestion along Hostmoor Avenue and, given the above, the application should be refused as the planning balance weighs heavily against the grant of planning permission and at the very least this application should be deferred until further advice has been obtained following the withdrawal of her client’s alternative application, the delivery of which has been relied upon so heavily in the officer’s report and the County in respect of safety aspects on the old Wisbech Road A141 junction, within the Aldi signal scheme and pedestrian crossing point at the Tesco roundabout.

Members asked question of the objectors as follows:

·       Councillor Gerstner asked for clarification about the 19.5% retail impact figure? Ms Crowder-James responded that this figure is in the Aldi application, it was arrived at after they put in an objection and asked them to reconsider the implications of the implemented 2015 Westry retail park scheme and the convenience and comparison combined impact and that 19.5% figure is the combined impact on March Town Centre. Mr Robeson referred members to paragraph 19.60 of the officer’s report.

Members received a presentation, in accordance with the public participation procedure, from Rob Scadding, on behalf of the applicant. Mr Scadding stated that he is from Planning Potential who are acting as Aldi’s planning consultant on this site since first meeting officers for pre-application discussions in early 2020 and the application was first submitted in May 2021 but since then they have engaged in dialogue with both officers and statutory consultees and are delighted that officers clear recommendation is that planning permission should be approved. He expressed the view that the application is supported by a range of technical documents and assessments covering all the material matters, including principle of development, retail impact, sequential, highways, design and technical compliance and they have been fully aware of the objections expressed by those who have spoken against the application this afternoon, however, all evidence submitted with the application has been independently assessed with no objections raised by any statutory consultee.

Mr Scadding expressed the opinion that if approved the new Aldi will bring much needed choice for local residents now more than ever with the rising cost of living it is important that people have access to genuine choice, with many local people already travelling to visit Aldi, with Chatteris being the nearest store and somewhere closer to home would be more accessible and mean shorter car journeys. He stated that it is not just them saying this over 1,500 people responded to their pre-application consultation with 95% expressing support and there have since been more than 80 individuals expressing support for the application itself, with a new Aldi being of significant benefit to the local community.

Mr Scadding expressed the view that this is an accessible commercial site within an area identified as growth within the Local Plan and Aldi’s proposals comply with this objective creating 15 new local jobs, which is a further direct boost to the investment in the local area. He recognises the site is not within an existing retail centre, which is why the application is supported by a retail impact assessment, this includes assessment on whether Aldi comes forward in isolation or with a new western retail park and as required by the NPPF the assessment demonstrates the potential overall combined impact on March Town Centre would be 7.3%, which is well within acceptable levels and there is no evidence that this will result in a significant adverse impact on the town centre or affects it vitality and viability, with the findings having been independently reviewed by the Council’s retail consultant who fully agrees with their conclusions.

Mr Scadding stated the access has been taken into consideration very seriously and it is not in Aldi’s interest to open a store that creates problems and Aldi’s project team have worked proactively with the County Highways since the pre-application stage to deliver a solution to the proposed Aldi, whilst also taking into account the wider highway network and from the outset they have been mindful of the MATS proposal, which if progressed should deliver wider structure changes and network improvements. He stated they have worked closely with Highways and considered scenarios of the store coming forward with or without MATS, again these findings are agreed and both scenarios covered within the draft 106 agreement, which is ready to be signed in the event of a positive resolution this afternoon.

Mr Scadding expressed the view that with the current cost of living crisis the need for a new Aldi has never been greater, the agreed solution means the significant economic investment and jobs in March is not unnecessarily delayed. He feels that all issues, particularly retail and highway matters, have been carefully assessed and independently verified leading to the recommendation that permission should be approved, this investment will deliver many benefits to the area and the application is strongly supported by local people so requested that members support the recommendation.

Nick Harding referred to the speaker’s presentation and in the scenario in which there is a problem and this causes a delay relating to the third party land required to be able to be implement the MATS scheme the Council would not be asking Aldi to pay the contribution to spend on MATS because of those delays and implementation of the MATS scheme and the money would only ever be asked for Aldi implementing their own highway improvement if the MATS scheme was up and ready and was going to be implemented in a 2 year timescale so there is this safeguard in place that the Aldi store, one way or another, will be served by a junction improvement on the A141.

Members asked questions of officers as follows:

·       Councillor Benney requested clarification that Aldi will either do the improvements highlighted in the proposal or if the MATS scheme comes forward in a reasonable timescale Aldi will pay £250,000 towards the MATS scheme but there has to be a guarantee that the scheme would be in place before they had to contribute to it? Nick Harding confirmed this to be the case, without certainty of the MATS scheme deliverability the Council would not request the 106 money and Aldi would be implementing their own junction improvement. Councillor Benney asked if the MATS scheme does not come forward, as he would expect Aldi would want to get on with the development, their highway scheme is acceptable? Nick Harding responded that as indicated by the applicant there has been extensive discussions with Highways and they are satisfied that the design of the Aldi’s own junction improvements on the A141 plus what is shown on the store plan in relation to access in and out of the car park works appropriately.

·       Councillor Benney asked the Highway Officer present that they have looked at the scheme and have no objections to the scheme that Aldi have put forward but it has been mentioned from one of the objectors about turning left only and is this an acceptable scheme for traffic to only turn left and go around Tesco roundabout? Hannah Seymour-Shove responded that this is acceptable to Highways, with the Tesco roundabout having been modelled to assess impact and it is deemed satisfactory.

·       Nick Harding asked Highways to comment on some of the statements made by the objectors in relation to the capacity of Aldi’s own junction improvement on the A141 and whether or not they are satisfied that Aldi’s own junction has sufficient capacity to deal with the expected traffic. Hannah Seymour-Shove responded that the A141 Aldi signal junction has undergone several modelling tests and these have shown that the junction itself will operate with better capacity with the signals in place than the existing layout and when it is taken into account the capacity on the A141 south bound arm, excluding the McDonalds application which is not a committed development site at this stage, it operates within capacity.

Members made comments, asked questions and received responses as follows:

·       Councillor Benney expressed the view that this is a balanced and good report and committee were told that there are 3 issues that members need to be satisfied with. He referred to loss of employment land and made the point that at every committee people will be pleased and others not, but looking at some of the photographs, knowing the site well, the site is not high value industrial land, it looks fairly derelict and the loss of land is equally making jobs and good use of the land. Councillor Benney expressed the view that on highways he has listened to both sides of the debate and he is just a councillor, guided by officers and the assurances he has received from Highways goes a long way towards satisfying any concerns and feels that committee should not be going against Highways as they are the experts and if they find it acceptable then he feels it is an acceptable scheme. He expressed the opinion that on the impact on March Town Centre, which is going through changes as are all town centres and retail is constantly evolving, there may be an impact on March Town Centre but it is unknown and the scheme that is before committee has positives within it in terms of employment and competition, with Tesco stating that they are not against Aldi coming per se to March and he welcomes competition as it benefits all the residents of March and beyond. Councillor Benney expressed the view that officers have done their upmost to bring this forward in a well-balanced and well written report that he feels has come to the right conclusion.

·       Councillor Gerstner agreed with the comments of Councillor Benney and referred to Highway comments in 5.6 and 5.7 of the officer’s report who have indicated that they have no objection and there is the caveat that the junction improvements should be in place prior to the store opening. He made the point that the County Council’s Highways Transport Assessment team also have no objection so members should be guided by the experts. Councillor Gerstner added that March Town Council is very much in favour of the proposal and they are the local council and they know their electorate well.

·       Councillor Benney agreed that local councillors are elected locally to make local decisions based on local knowledge and to listen to the electorate and carry their wishes forward, with the committee listening to the views of Town and Parish Councils, not always agreeing, but March Town Council supporting this application is putting over the views of the residents of March and as councillors that is the job to take note of what residents say.

·       Councillor Hicks agreed with Councillor Benney that this is a well written report and regarding the road turning onto the A141 left, in his opinion, living near this site you do have to turn left but it is not much of an issue and he does not feel there will be a lot of impact as it has worked successfully for a number of years.

·       Councillor Rackley stated that it is the electorate that vote councillors in and if Highways have not got a problem with coming off the A141 he thinks it is good for the consumer to have more choice in the current climate when times are hard.

·       Councillor Benney stated that he can remember when the junction that joins the A141 was right turn as well and the methodology for turning left and going around Peas Hill roundabout does work and as Highways have raised no objections to the scheme a turning left scheme already works at Tesco roundabout, there are always improvements that can be made but members have to work within the constraints that there are but if highways are indicating it is acceptable he has to take this at face value.

·       Nick Harding stated that the number of people supporting an application is not a relevant planning consideration it is about the nature of the comments and how they work in relation to the relevant planning policies and other material planning considerations. He added that competition is also not a material planning consideration, it is a side issue and whilst members might support the context of competition this should not play a part in the planning decision on the application. Nick Harding stated that the key issues are transportation, retail and quality of the employment land.

·       Councillor Benney referred again to the impact on March Town Centre and made the point that town centres are evolving and changing across the country and referred to Chatteris having one of the most derelict looking High Streets with empty shop units but this has been revived, with someone taking on empty units and allowing businesses to thrive. He feels March Town Centre is the same as a lot of the businesses in existence today have evolved on the benefit of having an empty unit to move into so as much as it has an impact that impact could be positive to other businesses that come along and want to take those opportunities on and whilst it may change the face of March Town Centre it could equally bring along something new. Councillor Benney expressed the opinion that councillors should not be standing in the way of progress and the real answer as to whether March Town Centre will change comes down to the residents of March, they use the shops and if they carry on using the shops in the town centre it will reduce the impact but if they wish to go and shop at Aldi it may impact but the residents of March will be voting with their feet and their money and this sets the direction of travel on any retail or changes to town centres.

Proposed by Councillor Benney, seconded by Councillor Rackley and agreed that the application be GRANTED as per the officer’s recommendation.

(Councillor Marks registered that he knows one of the current landowners of the site and took no part in the voting and discussion thereon. Councillor Imafidon chaired this item)

(Councillor Mrs French registered that she is Chairman of March Area Transport Strategy and took no part in the voting and discussion thereon)

(Councillors Benney and Hicks declared, under Paragraph 2 of the Code of Conduct on Planning Matters, that they had been lobbied on this application)