Controversial plans for a 35,000 square foot expansion of a garden centre near Burnham-On-Sea were deferred by district councillors on Tuesday (December 9th).
Plans to extend Sanders Garden World at Brent Knoll were unveiled by store boss Peter Burks in March (pictured) and were considered by members of Sedgemoor’s Development Control Committee at a meeting in Bridgwater on Tuesday.
A decision on whether the scheme can proceed was deferred until next year to allow negotiations with the applicant on planning contributions and further assessment of a condition in the application relating to goods to be sold.
Burnham town councillor Neville Jones told Tuesday’s meeting that the garden centre should be injecting more funding into Burnham town centre – similar to the deal recently struck with Tesco – if the planning application is to proceed. “I pushed hard for a planning condition of not less than the £300,000 sum currently being negotiated with Tesco,” Cllr Jones told Burnham-On-Sea.com.
Burnham-On-Sea’s Chamber of Trade said earlier this year that the proposals would likely hurt town centre trade.
The Chamber’s Chairman, Alex Turco, told Burnham-On-Sea.com after Tuesday’s meeting: “It would seem likely that Sedgemoor will approve this application once these negotiations are concluded since there would be little point in discussing these details if the scheme were likely to be turned down.”
“Sanders’ own research says Burnham will likely lose £0.5million per annum as a consequence of the expansion. The loss to Burnham can be reduced by tightening the definition of goods to be sold, particularly seasonal goods and farm foods, as well as an increased developer contribution.”
Wyevale, which bought the garden centre last year, hopes to increase the size of the store’s covered building to 63,000 square feet and hopes to generate over 100 new jobs. The plans would also see the number of car parking spaces rising from 369 to 411, and a new roundabout introduced on the A38 to cope with traffic.
Store manager Peter Burks believes the extended store would have no impact on the trade of Burnham shops. “I really don’t think it should make any difference to businesses in Burnham at all,” he told Burnham-On-Sea.com. “Our initial planning application restricted the number and type of products we could sell to reduce competition with shops in Burnham, and we have no intention of changing this.”
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