Lord Nelson Planning Application Appeal
The decision from the Lord Nelson appeal has been allowed. Read: the full appeal decision report.
The Lord Nelson appeal took place on the 4th, 5th and 6th February 2020. The inquiry was held in Weston Town Hall. Unfortunately there were not many locals present, we feel this is due to location and had it been held in Cleeve Village hall turnout would have been better. The decision from the Inspector can take up to three months. We will keep you all updated. please read the appeal notice for the mixed use development at The Lord Nelson.
Read: Cleeve PC’s response
We also instructed a planning solicitor to write an additional letter on our behalf.
The appeal is now live on the Planning Inspectorate website: APP/D0121/W/19/3237905
Planning application decision has been made: REFUSE. Read the full decision notice.
Cleeve Parish Council (CPC) OBJECTS to this application on the following grounds:
- Demolition of the Lord Nelson Public House. A report by Historic England published October 2017stated that ‘The Lord Nelson has clear local interest’.
- The building of a new 24/7 petrol filling station as an inappropriate development for an infill village. The site lies in a predominantly residential area with service villages of Backwell, Congresbury and Yatton in very close proximity fulfilling the needs of the community.
- The new petrol filling station is wrongly located in the centre and heart of Cleeve village. The Lord Nelson currently gives a sense of identity and belonging to Cleeve.
- The development is above 200 sq metres so the applicant needs to demonstrate that no suitable sites are available in defined local or district town centres. Policy DM67. This has not been demonstrated.
- Sustainable Development: No economic impact assessment has been submitted showing the viability of the jobs and whether the business model can be retained in the event of electric cars.
- There is no indication about whether jobs are newly created or merely relocated from elsewhere (e.g. office and administration jobs)
- The traffic assessment is inadequate and has missed out a category of traffic movements for the proposed Bar (an Asset of Community Value).
- CPC has grave concerns for the safety of road users on the A370 due to lack of sufficient car parking on site, contrary to Policy DM24.
- Car parking proposals are inadequate for the proposed development with the assumption that staff car parking is off site and may lead to highway safety concerns contrary to Policy DM24
- Shortage of car parking will have severe impacts on local residents with cars likely to be parked on local roads, obstructing existing drives. This already happens with people parking cars for the whole day in order to travel by bus into Bristol and elsewhere.
View Planning Application 17/P/5406/FUL – Lord Nelson, 58 Main Road, Cleeve, BS49 4NR
Our reasons, with evidence for opposing the application are stated in this document.
Community Comments
These three emails are a sample of emails written to the parish council on the demolition of the Lord Nelson.
Progress Updates
Update:
Please see information below, this is an email from North Somerset Council.
‘The trench evaluation has indeed been approved by myself, but I do not have the capacity to be on site monitoring all archaeological evaluations across the district for their entire duration. I did approve the written scheme of investigation, which sets out the location of the trenches, method statement and reporting details etc., and the archaeologists on site will be working to this.
This trenching is the first stage of archaeological investigations on this site, to determine the presence (or indeed absence) of the remains of the former inn on the site and the subsequent impact of any development upon these remains.
Depending what is found, I may need to visit the site tomorrow to monitor progress. I have spoken briefly with the site team this morning and they will be backfilling each of the trenches once any features are recorded. They will not be reinstating the tarmac as this is not within their remit, only to make the area safe.
The archaeologists on site are not required to notify the Parish Council of commencement of works, only myself and then I notify the case officer. However, details of the evaluation should be on the planning website against the application.’
Update:
It has been confirmed by the case officer that this application will not go to the planning committee until May. Looking likely to be the 9th May or 13th June.
District Councillor Deborah Yamanaka has already taken the appropriate action to call this application in to the planning committee.
