A major business park for Spalding, which will create 2,000 jobs, has been granted outline planning permission.
Lincs Gateway Business Park will include a Premier Inn hotel, Brewers Fayre pub, restaurant/cafe, conference and function centre, and fuel station.
The plan by Holbeach firm Ashley King Developments will be on land either side of Barrier Bank, next to the A16 roundabout.
Permission in principle was granted by South Holland District Council’s planning committee on Wednesday, following a two-hour debate.
Coun Howard Johnson, the council’s portfolio holder for economic development, backed the plan as a boost for employment and an improvement for a site long unused, adding: “The proposed business park would be pretty well used and the hotel would be welcomed.
“The conference and function centre could well be well used.”
Long Sutton member Coun Andrew Tennant added: “I think it’s quite an exciting development.”
It was agreed that several more conditions need to be worked upon to address concerns, including:
- protection of the amenity of neighbours
- CCTV coverage of the site
- cycling provision
- a safe crossing of Barrier Bank
Bunds (embankments) are already on site from its previous use and it was accepted at the meeting that these were key to protecting residents’ amenity.
Coun Bryan Alcock called for a “safe point of crossing” for Barrier Bank and criticised the state of the footpath leading from town.
“Surely to goodness there’s an opportunity to improve that,” he said. “Otherwise it’s a dangerous place to expect people to cycle.”
Council leader and ward member for the application Coun Gary Porter has been “bending the ear” of a county councillor for action.
He said: “It’s due to their [the county council] neglect that the footpath is in such an atrocious state.”
Coun Porter said after the meeting that he’d been told repairs would cost £500,000.
As consultees of the application, Highways officials have missed a trick, according to Coun Alcock, who said: “I find it appalling that the county council has not taken the initiative to be imaginative about this and I hope the officers pursue it.”
Planning manager Paul Jackson said, as far as the Gateway plan was concerned, the path was “dislocated from the site” but he would be prepared to raise members’ concerns with the county council.
Approval for the scheme came after a two-hour debate during which councillors admitted to confusion over which elements of the plan were reserved matters (detail for approval at a later date). Committee chairman Coun Roger Gambba-Jones called the hybrid application a “mish-mash” and Coun Alcock said it was “extremely confusing”.
Mr Jackson accepted that the uncertainty was probably the fault of council officers, rather than the applicant.
The proposed design of some of the buildings came in for swipes. Coun Gambba-Jones believes the conference centre “looks more like a swimming pool” and fellow Spalding Wygate member Coun Christine Lawton referred to the hotel as “from the Tesco school of architecture”.
Meanwhile, Coun Porter said environmental health officers say outside working hours on site should be restricted to 7am-7pm, not the 5am-11pm currently proposed.
The meeting heard that the council would want access to CCTV images of the site, Coun Porter adding: “If anyone does operate outside hours we should be able to get images.”
