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Jun 2021

Last Updated: 18/06/2021

Business

Wetherby Road Starbucks developer to seek legal costs if plan approved

by Calvin Robinson

| 18 Jun, 2021

Euro Garages, the developer behind a proposed Starbucks drive-thru on Wetherby Road, has said it will seek full legal costs from Harrogate Borough Council if the plans are given the go-ahead by a planning inspector.

The former 1st Dental surgery site on Wetherby Road, which is earmarked for a Starbucks.

A developer behind a planned Starbucks drive-thru on Wetherby Road has said it will seek full legal costs if the proposal is approved by a planning inspector.

Alan Evans, counsel for Euro Garages, told an inquiry earlier this week that the company would seek costs from Harrogate Borough Council for “unreasonable behaviour”.

Residents fighting the controversial proposal, which is planned for the former 1st Dental surgery site, appeared before the hearing to defend the refusal after the borough council withdrew its objection.

Alan Evans, a legal representative for Euro Garages, told the appeal that the planning committee’s latest decision of refusal should be overturned.

He said:

“Members of the committee were themselves unwilling to defend their reasons for refusal so if you wanted to have a bird's-eye view of unreasonableness, then I don’t think you could have a better one.

“No evidence has been brought forward, there never was any evidence and our application was based soundly at the outset.

“If the council can’t defend any reasons for refusal, then the obvious opposite side of the coin is that it should have been granted permission."

Residents living next to the potential site of the drive-thru told the inquiry into the plans that it would “completely destroy” their enjoyment of their homes.

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Speaking at the hearing on Tuesday, resident Joanne Richardson, who lives behind the proposed site, said:

“If this proposal is accepted then the impact on residents will be huge – it is seven days a week, unsociable hours and our amenity will be completely destroyed.”

Mrs Richardson also said revisions to the plans – including a re-jigged car park, reduction in the size of the coffee shop and an acoustic fence – did not go far enough to address local concern.

She said:

“What this current proposal does is move the drive-thru lane to literally metres from the windows of living areas directly adjacent to the site.

“It is absurd to think that a two-metre boarded fence and a planted area of a few metres will mitigate the impact on residents surrounding the site.”

Another resident, Mark Hinchliffe, told the appeal that the nearby Woodlands junction was “probably the busiest” in Harrogate as he also warned the town was already at “breaking point” with traffic congestion.

He said:

“Regardless of Starbucks arriving, there is already a major problem with that road – I can only describe it as the North Circular around London.”

The plans were first refused by Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee in 2017 before the applicant lodged an unsuccessful appeal, then submitted a revised application two years later.

These latest proposals were still rejected in 2019 but the council, nor its planning committee, chose not to contest the appeal because it had previously made a recommendation in support of the plans.

The council also said it was unable to find lawyers willing to fight the appeal on its behalf.

Helen Hockenhull, the planning inspector in charge of the appeal, will make a decision on the plan at a later date.

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Wetherby Road Starbucks developer to seek legal costs if plan approved

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