Bognor nursery in fight with national firm over premises

Christine Southerton has re-applied to move the Pavilion Nursery into part of the Regis Business Centre.

She wants to use 192 square metres of the Durban Road building for childcare between 7.30am and 6pm Mondays to Saturdays. Up to 33 children at a time will be looked after.

She has to leave her current location in Hook Lane on part of the University of Chichester's campus because the area is required for the expansion of the university's activities.

Her planning agent, Richard Stubbs, has told Arun District Council in her latest planning application that moving into the new premises was essential for the nursery.

He said: "My clients have been looking for premises to replace the existing one for over a year and have been unable to find anything that in any way meets their existing requirements.

"These premises are ideal in that they are well located at the southern end of Durban Road, close to Orchard Way, they have good car parking facilities and are actually near to facilities where existing patrons to the business may already work."

But Travis Perkins has recently submitted its own planning permission to demolish the centre and open another of its outlets. The company has more than 600 branches nationwide.

It supplies 100,000 product lines-plus to trade professionals including building materials, plumbing and heating, landscaping materials, timber and sheet materials, painting and decorating.

Both applications will be considered separately by Arun District Council. Council planning officer Keith Wheway said: "In circumstances like this, each application is considered on its own merits.

"If we were to grant permission to both of them, it would be up to the owners of the building and the applicants to decide which permission they would want to implement.

"There is no limit to the number of applications which can be submitted for any location."

Mrs Southerton's first attempt to win planning permission to change the use of part of the business centre '“ owned by Worthing firm West Fern Holdings '“ to a children's nursery was rejected by councillors last November.

They said they were worried about the loss of employment space if the nursery moved into the centre.

They also considered that there would be a conflict between the parents who would use the nursery for their children aged up to five and the vehicles linked to the surrounding commercial premises.

However, Mr Stubbs points out that the nursery would be employing 12 full-time and six part-time staff if it was allowed to move and increase its opening hours from the current 8am to 6pm. This compares to the present eight full and two to three part-time employees.

In addition, the parents who use the nursery considered the Durban Road location to be nearer, safer and easier to reach than the present location, he stated.

According to Mr Stubbs, all parents said they would have to give up work if the nursery failed to find alternative premises. He said: "It must be obvious and, indeed, of vital importance, how much this nursery provides not only for the care and assistance of the children involved at the premises but also enables their parents to go out and work."

Up to 11 car parking spaces would be available for the nursery but its location close to the Star 1 bus route '“ and South Bersted, Barton and Laburnum Grove schools '“ would encourage users away from their cars.

A fenced front garden would enable the children to enjoy fine weather with a gated entrance to secure access.

Mr Stubbs continued that there would be no conflict between the vehicles of the nursery children's parents and the industrial estate users. He described the argument as perverse and hard to believe.

"This development will simply not increase the demand for traffic over and beyond that which is expected as people will be obliged to come in, drop off their children to the nursery and vacate in the normal way, presumably with most vehicles exiting and leaving on to Orchard Way and not actually travelling up to and around the wider Durban Road industrial estate," he added.

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