A number of residents have commented about the trees and the netting. Let me quote from the plans for the landscaping of the grounds that is part of the expansion plans.

‘A high quality soft landscape scheme has been proposed to emphasis the entrance to the development, and the customer car park areas…………. Throughout the car parking areas within the site semi mature trees are proposed to provide initial height and interest. Tree species selection includes Acer, Betula and Quercus which are suitable to these positions.

Although some existing trees will be lost to allow the re-development of the site total of 56 replacement trees have been included in the new scheme particularly to the areas surrounding the proposed building and car park areas, to aid with the filtration of views of the store from surrounding properties’

Putting the trees on one side not everything has been agreed with regards to the extension. Sainsbury’s plans to fully enclose the service yard go before the Planning Committee on Tuesday and we will report on the result of that meeting later in the week.

Planning Committee defer plans submitted by Sainsbury’s to meet planning conditions that formed part of the planning decision that permits Sainsbury’s to build their extension.

In December 2011 Woking BC Planning Committee agreed to the plans to extend the Sainsbury’s store in Redding Way. As part of the permission to develop the Planning Committee imposed a number of planning conditions. One of those conditions was that Sainsbury’s had to submit, to the full Planning Committee, details of how they planned to fully enclose the service yard. The requirement to come back to the Planning Committee with a planning condition is unusual in that planning conditions compliance is usually left to Head of Planning under delegated powers.

The report on how the developer planned to meet the planning conditions was presented to the Planning Committee on 19 March 2013 and after a full debate a majority of Councillor’s voted to defer a decision on the above condition. Cllr Richard Sharp, supported by Cllr Melanie Whitehand and Cllr Saj Hussain put forward the argument that a number of papers referred to in the Planning Officers report had not been freely available on the WBC web site and therefore Councillors and acoustic experts had been unable to fully digest and question some of the facts and figures submitted by the developer. In the limited time available to study the papers it was felt that there was conflicting information and the Ward Councillors sought more time for these issues to be resolved.

The issues are around noise and air pollution. There has been an on-going battle between residents who live in close proximity to the service yard and Sainsbury’s. A breach of condition notice is in placein connection to the level of noise monitored close to local houses. In the decision notice issued by WBC in August 2012 it states that the Local Planning Authority will not pursue further action within the next 9 months as it was felt that by enclosing the service yard this would overcome any future breaches of the restrictive noise conditions. What local residents and Ward Councillors are seeking is that once the service yard is enclosed then local residents will have no grounds to complain of excessive noise from the service yard.