Aldwick’s Ship Inn plans back on the agenda

The vacant former Ship Inn in Aldwick. Pic by Steve Robards

Campaigners have launched a fundraising bid to buy the site and reopen it as a pub-restaurant.

But the premises, which is currently empty having been briefly run as a Morrisons, looks set to reopen as a One Stop store.

One Stop has applied to change the planning conditions set in 2014 for the previous occupier so it can increase the number of deliveries from 21 to 36 a week and alter the permitted delivery hours.

However this application was not supported by Arun District Council’s development control committee back in January due to road safety concerns.

Members overwhelmingly backed a deferral so an independent road safety audit could be carried out as well as to receive more information on vehicle tracking.

This work has now been done and the application is set to return to committee on Wednesday (May 27).

Officers are still recommending approval. According to their report ‘minor issues’ raised by the RSA can be resolved through conditions or an agreement with the developer.

At the January meeting, a number of councillors took issue with the proposal to allow large delivery lorries to park on the road itself as an alternative to unloading in the car park.

They felt this would mean insufficient road width for two vehicles to safely pass each other.

The RSA recommends that a ‘delivery management plan’ be prepared to set out the routing of delivery vehicles and how deliveries would be managed and supervised by trained members of store staff.

The applicant’s preferred delivery point would be for large delivery vehicles to use the area next to the building on Aldwick Street itself as this requires no reversing.

The submitted delivery management scheme sets out hours of deliveries and types of vehicles, with the store manager monitoring the flow of vehicles and would ‘adjust to reflect any local traffic changes or congestion immediately surrounding the store’.

A separate planning application by One Stop for signs at the site has already been approved by Arun.

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