Agenda item

New car showroom with ancillary service workshop, external forecourt and parking, offices and a café.

The Committee considered a report of the Senior Planning Officer regarding a new car showroom with ancillary service workshop, external forecourt and parking, offices and a café at land to the south of New Ferens Park, Belmont Business Park, Durham (for copy see file of Minutes)

The Senior Planning Officer provided the Committee with a detailed presentation which included photographs of the site and a plan of the proposed layout. The Senior Planning Officer advised of late amendments to be made to the application, advising that as it was no longer considered appropriate or necessary, condition 6 would be removed should the application be approved.

Councillor B Moir advised that as local Members for the Belmont division, he and Councillor Conway regularly raised issues regarding traffic movement in the area and then before them at the meeting was an application which would inevitably mean more cars in Belmont. He stressed that it would be imperative that transporters loaded and unloaded strictly within the curtilage of the garage premises and not on the main road. In stressing that point, Councillor Moir moved that the application be approved.

Councillor Conway seconded the motion for approval as the application was consistent with land use in the Belmont area, though he strongly reiterated the point raised by Councillor Moir regarding transporters.

RESOLVED:- “That the application be approved subject to the conditions detailed within the report, with the exception of the removal of condition 6”.