Oswestry supermarket site developers offer £1.3m to buy out bus clause
Oswestry's new supermarket and cinema complex could lose its park and ride service as developers want to spend more than £1.3 million extending the town's normal bus routes instead.
Officials at Optimisation Developments Limited have offered to pay the cash to Shropshire Council to effectively buy out a planning clause which states a park and ride service should be maintained at the Smithfield livestock market site for 20 years.
When permission for a new livestock market and a retail and entertainment complex on the site off Shrewsbury Road was granted in 2011, it was on condition that a park and ride scheme was provided to ensure a shuttle bus link between the site and the town centre. Highways officers at Shirehall have reacted favourably to the suggestion, claiming it would allow much-needed investment in transport services.
The developers' request to vary planning permission for the development, which would also include building a new £1.7 million electricity sub-station, will be discussed at a meeting of Shropshire Council's north planning committee on Tuesday.
In a report the developers say the variation of conditions is sought to enable the provision of an electricity sub-station, which was not previously proposed. "The effect of the provision of the sub-station is the loss of the park and ride parking area on the north western edge of the site a move that would be off-set by providing additional parking adjacent to the food store, two bus stops on the main road and a bus turning and stop facility within the site.
"The applicant/developer is now proposing to remove the shuttle bus provision and pay to the council a single financial contribution of £1.37 million."
In the report, highways officers state: "That money would enable the council to invest in securing and supporting bus services which would link the site to the town centre but also provide a wider benefit to Oswestry."
Councillors will hear that the idea would be for the money to be invested in altering an existing bus route to serve the retail park. It would provide a 30-minute service between 8am and 11pm, Monday to Sunday.
The report says the proposed scheme could also mean the bus service could link with other services.
It states: "It is a matter of balancing whether what is being proposed continues to make the development of the livestock market site for edge-of-town retail acceptable, not result in harm to the viability and vitality of the town centre but also not place unreasonable burdens on the development which would mean that the development did not proceed."
