Knowle Waitrose approved

COUNCILLORS tonight approved a Waitrose plan for Knowle.

                   
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Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council’s planning committee approved the plan for St John’s Close eight to one.

Kimberley Developments said it hoped work will start in the spring for an opening by the summer of 2014.

Objectors including The Knowle Society warned the plan would bring too much extra traffic to the village.

But councillors said Knowle needed a better supermarket offering and the plan would help “regeneate” the area.

The firm will build a store with a 1,161sqm sales area on a former bowling green by The Red Lion.

Five bungalows nearest the store will be relocated to create a car park that will remain the council’s control. The village’s Tesco has a 865sqm sales area.

The committee considered three planning applications, one for the store, another for 47 spaces at Lodge Croft and another for 23 spaces to be cut into verges in St John’s Close.

Station Road resident Dr Jennifer Hagon, of Arden Medical Centre, spoke out against the Lodge Croft plan, which her home backs onto, saying it will be used for youngsters to drink, smoke and take drugs.

She said: “It will provide an area which is not visible which is likely to be an area where young people will congregate and indulge in activities which are harmful to their own health and wellbeing.”

The Knowle Society’s Andrew Marston said responses from its own exhibitions found a “narrow” majority against the plan andwarned traffic and parking will be “considerably worse”.

Kimberley director Philip Pearce said the scheme had “radically” changed after first being proposed for the site of the village hall, which would have been replaced on the bowling green.

He said: “It is a store that is trying to integrate with existing traders and be part of the village centre.”

It is a “scheme of real high quality which we feel will be of real benefit not only to Waitrose clearly but to Knowle as a whole”.

Waitrose Stratford-upon-Avon manager David Reid said the firm has attracted new businesses like cake shops and florists to other towns it has set up in.

The branch manager at Knowle would be given the task of “making sure that they are working with local retailers for the benefit of Knowle” he said.

He said: “It is in our interests for the village as a whole to be vibrant and healthy.”

But Knowle councillor Jeff Potts said the existing car parks are up to 95 per cent full already.

He said: “The only thing we are actually gaining is 3,000 additional cars a week.”

He raised concerns about the safety of Arden school pupils and said low unemployment in Knowle meant most of the 120 new jobs would not go to local people.

He said independent studies of the impact of supermarket chains on places like Knowle show “the general opinion is it is bad for business”.

Cllr Potts said: “A smaller building on that site will be very, very welcome. People in Knowle are not opposed to that site being developed.”

Fellow ward councillor Alan Rebeiro said Knowle was a “divided community” over the issue.

Council traffic officer Emily Walsh said junctions would see “relatively small” increases and the forthcoming Sainsbury’s superstore in Dorridge will take traffic from Knowle.

Knowle Tesco is over-trading by 30 per cent she said but planners expect 20 per cent of this to go to Sainsbury’s and 10 per cent to Waitrose.

The council’s predictions for how full car parks will be do not take this into account, she stressed.

Residents would also change the times they go shopping if car parks are full and could stop using their cars, she said, adding: “People have a choice to go elsewhere.”

And she said one large car park will make traffic flow “a lot easier” as drivers can look for spaces within the car park rather than go in and out of the existing four small ones, she said.

Committee members then gave their views on the plan.

Cllr Jim Ryan: “I think what Waitrose are proposing will go a long way, in my opinion, to regenerate the centre of Knowle.”

He said: “If Knowle doesn’t get this and we want to refuse it, what will they get in the future?

“If Waitrose were to walk away there wouldn’t be another developer who will be as accommodating as Waitrose. We have to look at the best interests of Knowle.”

Cllr John Windmill said he was concerned villagers would not be able to afford to shop at the upmarket store.

He said: “Waitrose will attract from a surrounding area and Knowle will have increasing parking capacity problems.”

But he said he would back the plan with strict conditions on car parking and design, adding: “I think the way it has been integrated into the Knowle scene is quite frankly brilliant.”

Cllr Robert Hulland said: “The one thing it needs is a good quality food shop and Waitrose does seem to be fitting the bill for that particular community.”

Knowle resident Cllr Stuart Davis said: “It’s change, it’s progress, we may not like it but it is coming and we have to live with it.”

He said: “To do nothing, as they say, is not an option but we have to have the infrastructure.”

Further details will need to be with the council on car parking arrangements but he said the free parking must be at least three hours instead of two.

After the meeting, at the council’s offices next to Touchwood, Waitrose development manager Martin Gorman said: “We are delighted with the result.

“We worked extremely hard over the last couple of years engaging with the local community.” He said opponents were a “vocal minority”.

Knowle Society chairman Leighton Jones told The Silhillian: “Let’s get on with it now, it is a lot of work still to do.”

He said: “Our major concern now is parking and traffic and we will have to see how it works out.”

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