Nursery's bid to relocate and expand thrown out despite current access and land ownership concerns

The nursery said access issues and its current base being earmarked for an alternative development had resulted in plans being needed for a new facility.

The applicant proposed to move the nursery across the Mere Park development from near the garden centre to a vacant site east of the Premier Inn hotel.

Plans were submitted to Telford & Wrekin Council for a children’s day nursery together with an external play area, staff car parking and associated works.

The replacement nursery would have capacity to accommodate up to 112 children ranging in age from newborns to 11 years old.

The applicant said that the proposed building would accommodate 33 more children than previously and create 10 full-time jobs.

Applicant David Brierley stated that Mere Park Garden Centre, including the land occupied by the existing ChildrensWorld nursery, has been bought by the Blue Diamond Group.

“Blue Diamond has, subsequently confirmed its future intentions for consolidating and expanding its business model on the site, and these intentions have direct implications upon the future of the existing nursery,” says the applicant.

“The presence of ChildrensWorld nursery adjacent to both the garden centre’s restaurant and service area has discouraged Blue Diamond from implementing the restaurant extension or extending and enhancing the service yard.”

Access issues were also highlighted in the application due to the garden centre opening between 9am and 5.30pm. They said that outside of these hours, for security and insurance reasons, the security gates are locked.

“The security gates, therefore, prevent access to the car park for two hours each day when the nursery is open,” the applicant added.

“This results in vehicles being forced to make U-turns on Stafford Road, vehicles being parked on the verge on Stafford Road, vehicles reversing out on to Stafford Road on finding that the access gate is locked, and pedestrians movements across Stafford Road close to the roundabout where there are no footways.”

They added that staff and parents instead use an existing point of access from Stafford Road and a yard adjacent to the nursery building as informal parking area.

However, a recent complaint to the council resulted in an enforcement officer telling the nursery to stop using the access.

“The nursery cannot continue to operate without a suitable, unconstrained access during its opening hours,” they added.

“The nursery, therefore, has to relocate away from the existing site, or suffer more significant consequences, such as the closure of the nursery.”

However, Telford & Wrekin Council’s planning department has refused their planning application.

A planning officer stated: “Development on this site would result in undesirable encroachment onto land designated as rural area, where other suitable sites, including previously developed land, have not been suitably discounted (such as the existing nursery site).

“The local planning authority consider that the applicant has not submitted an appropriate business case to demonstrate that the proposal to develop the greenfield site will support the local economy and help sustain rural communities over and above what can be achieved on the existing nursery site.”

The applicant had argued that there no available sites within the built-up area of Newport suitable to accommodate the proposed development.

“Notwithstanding this, ChildrensWorld further contends that sites located within Newport are unsuitable as a result of viability concerns,” they argued.

“Whilst the operator had originally intended to re-invest in the existing site, the urgent need to relocate has subsequently arisen as a result of the change in the ownership of the garden centre.”

The council’s planning department also refused the application due to ‘insufficient information’ submitted in order to ‘assess the concerns raised by the local highway authority in respect of highway safety, parking provision and parent pick-up and drop-off facilities’.

The applicant’s agent Chris Smith, of Plan A (North West) Limited, had written to the council addressing highways and policy comments.

They argued that the 24 staff car parking spaces would be provided which would be ‘sufficient to meet operational needs’.

The planning agent added that previous planning permission for the existing nursery was without directly providing any car parking spaces.

“The existing nursery currently meets its parking demand off-site, and these off-site spaces will remain available to the proposed nursery,” they argued.

However, the council argued that with the adjoining car parks for the pub/hotel and garden centre are no longer shown under the applicants control so ‘it is not understood’ how parent parking could be ‘secured on a long-term basis’.

The nursery can appeal the planning refusal, which would result in a planning inspector looking over the plans.