Kamis, 04 Juli 2013

Link Road Morrisons gets the go ahead

Cornwall Council's strategic planning committee today gave the go ahead for the new Morrisons supermarket on Launceston's Link Road. The committee also gave outline consent for a hotel, fast food restaurant, pub and 275 homes.

The vote was 20 in favour and just one against.

Both I and colleague Jade Farrington spoke to the committee. We both broadly supported the plans but had concerns about the loss of up to seven of the Millennium Avenue of oak trees. We both argued that an alternative entrance would have been better and we regretted that the developers had not been able to find one in order to preserve the oaks.

However, it is clear that the majority of people in Launceston support the scheme. The developers found 80% support and Jade found just over 70% support in her survey. At the same time, we found broad opposition to the idea of a supermarket on Race Hill car park with around two thirds opposed.

So the supermarket will go ahead and bring over two hundred new jobs to the town. It will also bring competition to Tesco and there will be mitigation measures in place to offset any damage to the town centre.

The rest of the scheme - the hotel, pub, housing etc - will need to come back for detailed planning permission. When it does I will be looking to see that the housing has not encroached onto employment space, that the much needed southern loop road is properly formed and that there are works to the South Petherwin Road to widen this and make it suitable for the extra traffic it will be asked to carry. 

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