When the Cooperative Group applied for planning permission to open a shop at 8 McDonald Road (Breaking news, 22.2.11), they submitted very carefully reasoned arguments based on exhaustive research into the local retail ecology.
As part of that application, they themselves sought opening hours restricted to 7.00am–11.00pm. As we understand it, the Council consent later stipulated hours of 9.00am–9.00pm on Sunday, establishing that these were to safeguard the amenity of neighbouring residents and other occupiers of the building.
Now, though, less than a month after opening, the Coop have applied to extend their opening hours (not delivery hours) from 6.00am–11.00pm on Monday–Sunday; i.e. an additional 11 hours per week (Ref. 11/04020/FUL).
The Coop argue that the existing hours are 'overly restrictive' and that their proposed change:
- would not create additional noise
- would not affect upstairs office users
- is for a city-central area where commercial activity 'does take place throughout the day'
- concerns premises which attracted no complaints from locals when formerly open until midnight as a bar
- would bring opening hours into line with 'a significant number of other retail and commercial premises, including a Tesco Metro convenience store at 4–6 Brunswick Place ... with residential properties on the upper floors'.
Spurtle observes that:
- if staff and additional customers attended the shop during longer hours, there would self-evidently be additional noise over a longer period of time
- whilst the area is certainly city-central, commercial activity does not currently take place at 8 McDonald Rd during the extended opening hours proposed (hence the lack of disturbance to absent office users upstairs)
- current commercial users of the building may not be disturbed in the immediate future, but potential residential users of the building a few years down the line might very well be so; how readily would the Coop reduce its opening hours to improve their amenity in such a scenario?
- comparison of a public house, formerly open late, to a supermarket potentially open early and late is like comparing chalk and cheese: irrelevant
- as important is a point of principle: there is nothing in the Coop's pleadings which could not have been foreseen or discovered at the time of their original – expertly compiled, meticulously researched and highly detailed – application. Many sceptical observers will therefore wonder whether the Coop had longer opening hours in mind all along.
Were City of Edinburgh officials and elected representatives now to permit the watering-down of opening-hour constraints so soon after their imposition, it would certainly add to the widespread impression that Edinburgh's Planning is practically spineless and far too easily outmanoeuvred by focused operators in the private sector.
That would be the latest in a series of very bad outcomes for all who care about this city's future.
*****
As reported in Breaking news (6.12.11), planning permission has been granted for a new Sainsbury's at 28 Howe Street.
Now, less than 2 weeks later, Sainsbury's have returned to the Planning process with planning and listed building consent applications to create a disabled access ramp with associated railing outside the premises (Ref. 11/04076/FUL; 11/4407/LBC).
Why, we wonder, was this proposal not included in the original plans? Was it, perhaps, because – viewed in combination with all the other worrying effects of the overall design upon the character, appearance and architectural integrity of a Category A-listed building in a Conservation Area and UNESCO World Heritage Site – an incongruous ramp might have attracted too much critical attention?
Spurtle is all in favour of widespread disabled access. However, we share the misgivings of those who worry about imposing modern criteria upon important historic buildings when acceptable alternatives – in this case, a Stockbridge Sainsbury's branch – already exist nearby.