Supermarket giant Asda has unveiled new plans to permanently change its controversial early morning delivery hours at its Highbridge store.
The company won the go-ahead from Sedgemoor District Council in April for a three-month trial of 5am deliveries despite opposition from some local people.
Now, the company has submitted a brand new application requesting that the delivery hours become permenent to enable lorries to make deliveries on Mondays through to Saturdays from 5am each day – instead of the previous 7am.
The three-month trial period was put in place to enable the council to assess the impact on the local community.
One resident, Douglas Stewart, who lives in nearby Grange Avenue, says: “I strongly object on the grounds of noise disturbance to the local residents.”
“This store is already a very noisy site. The only time of peace and quiet is during the traffic-free period which Asda now seeks to remove. I cannot see any need for this change to delivery times.”
The Planning Application – reference 11/15/00080 – is set to be considered by the town and district councils over the coming days and residents have until August 28th to formally submit comments.
Kate Gapper from RPS Planning, on behalf of Asda, says: “The existing delivery restriction leads to a lack of customer choice and waste. Allowing Asda to accept deliveries from 5am on Monday to Saturday will bring about more customer benefits as food can be on the shelves before the store starts getting busy at 8am.”
“Receiving deliveries when the store is at its busiest leads to conflict between staff stocking shelves and customers. In addition, it does not provide early customers with the wider choice. Deliveries as proposed will also result in benefits to the customer in terms of a wider choice of produce and longer shelf life and life of the goods once purchased by the customer.”
“The earlier delivery times will allow for the first round of home shopping customers to receive the full range of fresh products thus benefiting the customer. The number of deliveries will not increase as a result of allowing this application.”
