Safeway has been granted outline planning permission for a 2,323 sq m (25,000 sq ft) superstore in Bath, south-west England, after a 10-year battle and three planning appeals.
It what has become a test case, the The Environment Secretary has upheld the inspector’s findings that although there would be an increase in pollution it would still be below DOE guidelines. He also accepted Safeway’s argument that, although pollutants would increase locally, taking Bath as a whole, traffic would be reduced by about 700,000 miles pa.
Bath Council rejected the application for a superstore on the Kensington bus depot site at London Road in 1994 citing a recently published government policy Air Quality – Meeting the Challenge.
This decision has now been overturned by the appeal decision – understood to be the first of its kind – which rests on the extent to which the superstore would increase traffic-generated air pollution.
The inspector found there was no ground for refusal on either retail or highway terms and that it met a need for new retail floorspace in the north and east of the city.
According to Safeway’s advisor, Peter Weatherhead at DTZ Debenham Thorpe, “Developers of large schemes will now have to recognise that, along with retail impact studies and traffic impact studies, they will also have to commission experts to look at air quaility impact.”
EGi News 21/11/97
