We held a meeting with planners and the owners of the Arnison Centre today as your local councillors concerning a new planning application which will see changes to one unit and additional units being built.
The Pets at Home business is to move into the empty former Comet unit and their current unit will be upgraded and divided into a number of smaller units.
In addition three new small units will be built between Pets at Home and McDonalds. These new units will be for businesses such as restaurants, cafes, perhaps travel agent etc. We discussed a number of concerns as follows:
1. Congestion and Parking – The whole site will have a three hour maximum parking brought in which should free up a significant number of parking places. Additional staff parking is being provided to the rear of the units over and above what has been previously proposed. This makes a lot of sense and should make it easier to park and reduce congestion. We have got agreement on a full travel plan for the entire site to help promote use of public transport, car share and sustainable travel to the site. The loss in parking spaces is significantly less within the site than when a previous application was brought forward and the additional measures should actually increase parking availability within the site.
2. We raised issues about the safety of the entrance to the rear of the centre (Rear of Asda) from Abbey Road/Abbeywoods where cars are parking right up to the junction and this is being looked into.
3. We raised concerns about safety crossing the road to the new units. Officers and site owners say that putting up fencing to stop people walking straight out onto the road instead of using crossings is not appropriate. We disagreed with them but have been given assurances that there will be a considerable improvement to lighting and landscaping in the area of the new units.
4. We have also been promised proper landscaping maintenance and work to improve the landscaping around the outside of the site facing Rotary Way.
5. The Council is going to get a huge boost in business rates from the extra units as the government now gives councils half of any increase in the area. This will provide the council with hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra business rates income.
I have made representations to senior council management and the Deputy Leader of the Council to ask if they will consider providing some of this towards improving the immediate local area including Abbey Leisure Centre. After all it only seems fair that the local area gets some proportion of the benefit from the expansion.
Overall the development will help to fill the empty Comet unit. It will add to the variety of shopping at the centre and bring a significant number of extra jobs to the area. It should also result in easier parking but we remain concerned about the ongoing congestion and parking levels. For this reason we have been given commitments that the impact and progress of the travel plan will be provided to us on an ongoing basis. This will allow us to challenge the council and site owners if congestion and parking problems are not reduced.
If anyone has other issues please do get in touch with one of us.