A yard in Lime Street, Brightlingsea can’t be used for general industrial use, Tendring District Council (TDC) planners have ruled.
Nearby residents, Brightlingsea Town Council and Essex County Council were among objectors to a retrospective planning application to change the use of the site at the rear of 19 Tower Street from builder’s yard to general industrial, with complaints of noise, dust, increased traffic and access issues.
At a meeting in October, nearby residents said work on the site caused problems “at all hours of the day” and town mayor Chris Pavely described it as being like “a sawmill”. John Pateman-Gee, Tendring District Counci’s (TDC) head of planning and building control, told residents that the work going on in the yard was “unauthorised”.
Refusing the application, planners said that a noise assessment submitted by the applicant – listed as Mr Towner of The Yard, Lime Street – failed to demonstrate that the proposed use “would not result in unacceptable harm to residential amenity” because it had measured noise “from limited equipment” 30m away from the site, rather than at the nearest houses which were between 14m and 19m away.
There was no assessment of the environmental impacts of dust, fumes and vibration, said planners. “As a result, the application fails to demonstrate that the development would avoid unacceptable impacts on health, amenity, and the environment.”
The application also failed because it “would intensify vehicular use of Lime Street, a private unmade road forming part of a public right of way, which is substandard in width, layout, visibility, and construction”.
Planners said that any increase in traffic on Lime Street would be considered “severe”, adding: “Safe and suitable access for all users cannot be achieved, and there is no mechanism to secure improvements or mitigation. The increased traffic would exacerbate existing conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians, creating reversing manoeuvres and obstruction, to the detriment of highway safety as well as increase harm to amenity of pedestrians who share the road as a footpath.”
Insufficient information was provided to show how refuse or fire tenders could access the site. “The evidence before the council indicates that these movements cannot be accommodated without harm to the long term condition of the public right of way or risk to users,” said planners.
Another reason for refusal was that “there is no compelling need for the development to be located within the Coastal Protection Belt”, thought the planners admitted that “the proposal offers some economic benefit” and had “neutral” visual impact.
Overall, though, planners considered that industrial use would result in “substantial harm” to residential amenity and highway safety.
They concluded: “The incomplete noise assessment, lack of mitigation, and potential for dust, fumes, and vibration create unacceptable risks to nearby occupiers. In addition, the proposal would result in severe residual cumulative impacts on highway safety with no mechanism for improvement. These harms carry considerable weight and clearly outweigh the limited benefits.”
A TDC spokeman told Brightlingsea Info that as the application has only recently been refused, no decision has yet been made about possible enforcement action at the site.
