Clearing the air over planning

As part of the planning application a traffic and highways assessment was submitted to Arun District Council and West Sussex County Council, which reviewed the information, found no problem with the amount of parking proposed for the supermarket.

The old Body Shop car park has now become a part of the staff car park for the Enterprise Hub offices with an access from Courtwick Lane.

The permission for the car park at the “hub” is for 90 vehicles and we understand that until the hub is fully operational there may be some staff from Morrisons parking there temporarily.

There is no HGV access to Morrisons from Courtwick Lane and any HGVs using this street were likely to have been using the road before the re-development and this was recorded in the 2011 transport assessment.

There does not appear to be additional day-to-day HGV traffic in Courtwick Lane after the construction of the Morrisons development was completed in February.

Morrisons’ deliveries and customer access is from the Wick roundabout.

On learning of the breach of tree preservation orders at the site, officers have worked with Morrisons to address this issue and the supermarket chain has acknowledged that these were removed in error.

District council officers worked closely with a group of local residents from nearby Courtwick Lane and Condor Mews, meeting with them to identify what they would like to see put in place.

Once agreed and discussed with Morrisons, a detailed proposal was circulated to the group of residents for further agreement. The hedging is an immediate replacement to improve the look of the area, but oak trees were also planted to provide a long-term replacement.

The group had confirmed that they had no objection and that in time the new hedging and trees will restore an aspect that was lost.

Morrisons’ application for amendments to the planning conditions were advertised in public and one objection was received to a condition relating to a change in delivery hours.

This was discussed and the change together with the other amendments were subsequently approved at the planning committee meeting.

Karl Roberts

Arun’s assistant director for planning and economic regeneration.