By John Baron
Councillors have performed a u-turn and approved controversial proposals for a new Burger King drive-thru restaurant in Kirkstall Retail Park.
As reported by WLD last month, members of the south and west plans panel had said they wanted to refuse proposals for a new £2 million Burger King on highways safety grounds.
There had been multiple objections surrounding traffic congestion and road safety.
But councillors meeting in Leeds Civic Hall today heard legal advice that the council would be unlikely to win if they refused permission and the developer appealed against the decision to an independent planning inspector.
They were told that similar refusals in other parts of the country had seen local authorities have their decisions overturned, with substantial costs awarded to the applicants.
Council highways officers said they were satisfied that the traffic impact of the scheme was not serious enough to refuse permission.
Councillors voted 3-1, with a number of abstentions, to approve the plans in principle and defer and delegate final approval to the council’s chief planning officer, subject to a raft of conditions.
Conditions include a legal agreement which would see the developer pay £30,000 towards road signal improvements and £42,000 for traffic cameras. Council officers had also warned the panel that if there was a successful appeal, the scheme could go ahead without the financial contribution.
Councillor Andrew Parnham (Lab, Armley) voted against the proposals on traffic grounds. He said he felt he was being ‘railroaded’ and ‘gaslighted’ into approving the plans by council officers and said it was ‘no surprise… five local councillors had objected.’
“If I agreed to this plan, residents in Armley would think that I am bonkers,” he added. “I just find this baffling. It’s a conduit between three very busy areas of the city.”
Meeting chair Paul Wray (Lab, Hunslet & Riverside) agreed the proposals were contentious but advised councillors not to use their own lived experience or ‘what your constituents might want’ but give significant consideration to planning policy and the advice of professional council highways officers.
Real estate investment trust NewRiver Retail submitted the single storey plan for the disused corner plot at Kirkstall Retail Park, next to Matalan. They argue the project would create jobs and bring a disused site near Savins Mill Way back into use.
Yes, god forbid that a councillor should act in accordance with the constituents’ views, whatever next ….
Here here ldsbfd!! I respect the one councillor who voted against this and wish my councillors had done the same. Installing traffic cameras is not the answer to a traffic system that is broken in kirkstall. It takes me 15-20 minutes to travel the last 0.3 miles over kirkstall bridge to my home near kirkstall sports centre each work day (15 minutes to travel the other 18 miles before that!) We have been shafted in this area and it’s just so sad that money talks and is the only power at work here. Not much point having councillors if they don’t put forward our views and vote with their principles and constituents in mind. More pollution, more traffic, more people more rubbish into an already broken system in kirkstall. Also not a healthy food choice we should be encouraging, we have enough fast food joints in this area to damage peoples health without this. The whole project is completely backwards thinking.
If you look at places where councillors actually care about residents, you see places which have an *actual* high street, with independent shops, nice places to eat etc, such as Chapel Allerton, Farsley, Otley etc. what does Kirkstall have? A massively polluting ‘shopping centre’, the majority of which sells plastic, soon-to-be-landfilled tat, and a traffic problem which has utterly broken the area.
Last week, it took me 27 minutes to get from De Lacy Mount to Kirkstall Bridge on my way to work. A distance of 0.4 miles. This is without the horrendous implications of the woeful decision to build houses on Kirkstall Hill, and this newest monstrosity which the councillors weren’t brave enough to stand up to (the Armley councillor excepted – at least there’s one politician with an ounce of integrity).
There are 2 drive throughs 1 mile away in one direction, another 2.2 miles away in the opposite direction, and a Burger King literally up the hill, 1 mile away. That is 4 fast-food restaurants within a 2 mile radius – why on earth is this needed, and how could the proposed ‘benefits’ possibly outweigh the vast disruption this will cause to local residents? This is quite clearly not needed, and that’s without the environmental impact, pollution, and litter that will inevitably come from this development. Additionally, it is recognised that there is a rodent infestation in the goit. Nationally, rodent infestations are linked with fast food chains.
Offering a measly £70,000 to address things that are not at the issue at the hand is is a cynical deployment of pocket change to a corporation like Burger King, to deflect from the real issue. Red light running is not the issue here, neither are signal timings. Neither of these issues are related to the actual volume of traffic passing through Kirkstall. An issue which will be compounded by this development. This cash is merely an attempt to deflect from the volume of traffic, to try to pull the wool over residents’ etc eyes and is not actually related to the central issue, which is the volume of traffic.
Yet again, Kirkstall councillors have rolled over in the face of moneyed corporations which seek to exploit the area and will provide no benefit to it, whilst having a significantly detrimental impact on residents. It’s almost as if they couldn’t care less about residents, isn’t it?
I don’t think the issue here is the Burger King, I welcome something that will bring local jobs.
The issue is and always has been the traffic carnage in Kirkstall and credit to Councillor Andy Parnham for voting against it
Put looking back over the years traffic has got worse and worse around here and the council has to take a massive part of the blame, they were the ones that approved a new housing development and years back the shopping centre with out thinking about the traffic impact, we all love the shops in kirkstall
I think the council need to go away and look at the whole junction, a redesign, traffic lights that are actually in sync, etc, what about making the whole junction a massive one way Gyratory with multiple lanes, maybe that would speed up the flow of traffic?
The traffic in the Kirkstall area is horrendous and broken . Amen corner bridge over the canal has been a disaster since it has been modified and that along with Wyther Lane ! Amen corner bridge should be closed to traffic . Who ever makes these traffic decisions obviously dosn’t drive in the area .
No wonder the Labour ward members are leaving Kirkstall, we now have one residing in pudsey away from the chaos and congestion of kirkstall….. But the sheeple keep voting Labour.
Brilliant cant wait to open .I see the nimbus upset shame but a high class food takeaway I think good idea