Morrisons tries again with car repair scheme for its Stratford store in Alcester Road
A SUPERMARKET giant has submitted updated plans to make the most of “out of the way spaces” at its car park.
Morrisons has put forward the application to place a single Direct Line Body Repair Shop at its Alcester Road location to offer minor body repairs to vehicles which have no structural damage and do not require to be taken off the road into a traditional body shop.
It comes on the back of a previous application for Xpress Centre Pods, which would have offered the same service and resulted in the same loss of 18 car parking spaces, that was refused in May.
This scheme was thrown out by planners because it was “unsympathetic” to the existing layout of the site and that advertisements would have been of an “inappropriate size, design, colour and material, whilst including illumination which has not been justified for the nature of the mainly daytime operation”.
The decision notice added that as no noise or odour assessments had been submitted, there was “insufficient information” to confirm whether they could be adequately controlled due to the close proximity of neighboroughing residential properties.
There was also concerns the original application did not support the transition to a low carbon future.
This time around, Morrisons has submitted noise and odour assessments alongside its updated application to revitalise the car park, which Chesterfield-based agents Whittam Cox say will bring employment opportunities and boost the offering to customers.
Acoustic consultants Sharps Redmore said in their report that the noise levels would be “indicative of low impact” for operation between 6am and 10pm, the same weekday operating hours of the Morrisons store. They added the assessment had “objectively demonstrated” that noise associated with the proposal “would not give rise to a significant adverse impact”.
Meanwhile, Redmore Environmental said they used a standard industry method to assess potential odour impact. Following consideration of those factors, the Manchester-based firm said the overall effects as a result of emissions from the repair centre were predicted to be “not significant”.
They added: “As such, potential odour impacts are not to considered to represent a constraint to the proposals.”
Engineering firm Bryan G Hall added the scheme was making use of “out of the way spaces” which are not currently used and that their transport statement demonstrated the proposal would not be detrimental to the safe and efficient operation of the existing car park.
The district council has until 30th November to make a decision.
