Democracy being denied
The granting of planning permission to Aldi for a store on the old Right Car site in Swinemoor Lane has attracted minimal publicity.
I rang the contact officer on August 3 to ask the date of the meeting and the officer's recommendation.
She told me that it had yet to be set but it could not be held until September because the councillors were on holiday.
I rang the lady again to be told East Riding Council officers had approved the store under delegated authority on August 23 without a planning meeting.
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She told me that as they had received no objections to the store from the public consultation then a planning committee meeting was not required.
I contacted two of my local councillors but neither knew anything about it.
My intention was to make my comments after studying the Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA).
That is how officers concluded, as essential for public safety, to include in Aldi's plans a pedestrian crossing, knowing full well that its position so near to the roundabout must affect the traffic flow and, critically, unlike the new hospital, a waiting lane is not viable at that point.
Remember the chaos caused by the bus station/Tesco crossing that had to be built to serve 300 shoppers a day as a requirement of the Tesco TIA.
Council tax-payers need to know how the planning officer arrived at his decision.
He refused the application for a convenience store on the Lady le Gross site on both grounds of traffic and taking away town centre trade.
Officer-only authorisation may save time and money but as the application affects the town then open accountable local democracy is being denied.
My major concern is the extra traffic generated from the Flemingate site plus calculation for the inevitable increase by building the minster bypass.
The council mindset to revive the Grovehill Retail Park plan, adding food superstore/petrol station/fast food/another pub, all needing high volume of visitors, guarantees chaos.
Peter Robinson, Beverley.
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