Council rejects Tiverton agricultural hub

Concerns were raised over its environmental impact

North Devon District Council has rejected plans for an agricultural hub north west of Tiverton over fears around its environmental impact.

A local tractor vendor had submitted plans to build facilities at Stonelands Cross off the North Devon Link Road, in a move that would expand its business and create 20 new jobs, but the idea was greeted with scepticism from North Devon Council.

It wanted to build a workshop, a storage and distribution facility, and a shop and showroom, along with offices.

The plan is in line with the National Policy Planning Framework (NPPF) but does not entirely adhere to North Devon’s local plan.

Several councillors also expressed concerns late last year that the hub would create additional traffic in the area.

A road to the proposed site joins with a busy section of the A361 North Devon Link Road, something councillors said would become a safety issue with higher levels of traffic generated  if the proposal comes to fruition.

Different reports about the potential safety of the road are conflicting. A highway report from Devon County Council had initially said that the proposal should be refused because of the expected increase in traffic and the associated risks.

However, a second survey of the road by an assessor was commissioned on behalf of the applicant, and the county council is happy this shows enough evidence that the road is safe enough, with sufficient gaps in the traffic for service and delivery vehicles to turn into and out of the junction.

The developer is also happy to assist with signage, such as countdown markers usually used on motorways and dual carriageways, to let road users know a junction is coming up.

Another idea is to either cut back or move a hedge blocking the view of the junction, reducing the risk of accidents. One resident, however, told the district council that that they believed cutting the hedge will require an environmental impact assessment.

At a North Devon planning meeting on Wednesday [11 January] several residents took issue with the applicant’s report showing that there had not been an accident on the A361 section in question in the last 10 years. One resident pointed out that there had been a fatal collision in May 2018, and another crash in June.

An officer from DCC said the second traffic report was ratified by auditors at the county council, and that this report had not strictly put him in favour of the plan, but simply eliminated his objections to the proposal.

When shown an image of the junction in question, Cllr Ray Jenkins (Conservative, Chittlehampton) found it “disturbing” that it depicted four cars passing the junction, as he did not feel this was at all an accurate representation of how busy the road really is.

“I’m a regular user of that road, and rarely is it as lightly populated as that,” he said, pointing out that larger vehicles, such as caravans pulling out of the junction would be dangerous.

“It seems like we should be legislating for the worst-case scenario,” he added.

The planning committee established that traffic concerns were not a good enough reason to reject the proposal, which made it difficult for Cllr Frederick Tucker (Liberal Democrat, Marwood Ward) to see how it could be refused.

“I’m struggling to see whether we can bring together sufficient reasons to turn it down,” explained Cllr Tucker.

However, he urged that signage and hedge conditioning be implemented near the junction to ensure road users are aware of possible congestion and can act accordingly.

Cllr Tucker reasoned that it was “better to support it and gain what we can for the community than to not support it and then find we get it anyway without any of those things.”

Cllr Caroline Leaver (Liberal Democrat, Newport Ward) said the hub being built on a greenfield goes against the local plan and that its expected benefits do not counterbalance the detrimental effect to the environment.

“I want to put forward an amendment that we move for refusal on the basis that the application does not accord with the local plan policies sufficiently,” she said.

“We are asked to make a judgement between the balance with social and economic, and environmental impact, and whether that is outweighed by the economic benefit. And I don’t believe in this case it is.”

On the basis that the proposal deviated from the local plan, the agricultural hub was refused by six votes to four.