Plans for two ‘huge’ new warehouses have been passed despite pleas from residents who say noise pollution from the industrial estate site is already making their lives a misery. Proposals for two industrial units - standing at 12.5 and 10 metres tall respectively - at Kingsway Business Park, in Rochdale, were passed by a majority vote of the council’s planning committee.
A report to the committee stated that the buildings would be 34 metres from the nearest homes and pose ‘no unacceptable harm’ in terms of visual intrusion, overshadowing, overbearing impact or noise and disturbance’. Applicant Wilson Bowden Developments has planning permission for a similar scheme, albeit with nine-metre high buildings, to fall back on, but had been asked to carry out further consultation with residents after the application was deferred back in February.
They returned with a revised scheme for ‘Plot J2’ - including shortening and widening of the car park to allow for an increased landscape buffer to the nearest homes, moving boundary treatments further away from Lower Lane, and additional planting at the site boundary. But residents claimed that the revisions were nothing more than tweaks that would do nothing to mitigate the ‘terrible effect’ the scheme would have on their lives.
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Simon Goldstone, of Lower Lane, represented residents opposed to the scheme at the committee meeting on Thursday night. He told the panel he had raised ‘very grave concerns about noise, vibrations, light pollution, loss of sleep and impact on our health’ - but the developer had dismissed alternative uses due to ‘commercial greed’.
"The applicants will tell you tonight that they’ve scaled Everest to try and accommodate us," he said. "But the reality is they haven’t. They’ve paid lip service to us.
"They’ve made a slight tweak here, a minor change there they’ve moved the site by half a degree.It’s not substantial change and nothing will mitigate the terrible effect this will have on our lives.”
Mr Goldstone said the current situation was already ‘ridiculous’ and had resulted in residents seeking legal redress for the disturbance that continues to blight their lives, keeping them awake during the early hours of the morning.
He urged the committee to ‘show some teeth; and hold the developer to account.
“They can’t be allowed to construct two enormous and speculative buildings so close to our front doors with no respect for listed buildings like the house next door to me,” he said.
“The residents here tonight are hard working, law abiding, tax-paying people. We should be able to come home in the evening, enjoy our homes, our families and watch TV and have a restful night’s sleep.”
He rounded off his presentation by playing an audio recording of noise heard from his home during the early hours.
But Gary Lees, representing Wilson Bowden Developments, told councillors the principle of development for industrial and warehouse at the business park had been established with the grant of planning permission back in 1999.
“This plot has the benefit of planning permission for employment development for 24 years. This is nothing new. This has been a long term investment - jointly with your council - to deliver jobs and growth for the people of Rochdale.
“The only reason we are here tonight with a new planning application is because of the building height. That’s the reason we are here before you tonight.”
He argued that the developer had ‘gone the extra mile in trying to deliver the noise levels which are lower than what is permitted within the outline scheme’, before stressing the importance of the hundreds of jobs it would bring to the site.
However, committee member Coun Winkler told the meeting he was not convinced by the officer’s report.
“We’ve heard that it’s allowable levels, that it’s tolerable levels, that it’s acceptable levels. I appreciate that we can set these levels in place and they can be all those things on a piece of paper,” he said.
“When it’s consistent and it’s sustained and it’s day and it’s night and it’s constant, that’s what residents live with," he said. “It’s got to be acceptable to live with and what’s acceptable on paper isn’t necessarily what’s acceptable in our homes.”
He moved to reject the application on the grounds of noise and disturbance, smells and fumes and the proximity of the development to residents’ homes.
But Coun Aftab Hussain questioned whether that could be defended at appeal, given the council’s own officers had recommended the scheme for approval.
“I do sympathise with the residents,” the Smallbridge and Firgrove councillor told the meeting.
“But this site has been identified as an employment site and already has planning permission and we have no reason to refuse the application. We have no material planning reason to refuse it, therefore I propose to go with the recommendation.”
The plans were passed by 10 votes to one (Coun Winkler), with Coun Sameena Zaheer abstaining.
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