Church wants to use shop as its hub

A shop in Causewayhead looks set to be turned into a hub for a church.

Conditional approval has been granted to the Epaphroditus Trust who submitted a planning application on behalf of Cornerstone Church which meets on a Sunday within nearby Wallace High School.

The application sought use of the Castle Road unit – currently occupied by J D Smith & Sons, painters and decorators – to allow social activities. Officials were told the building would mainly be used as office space for staff but other activities could include a toddler group, seminars, student meetings, an annual acoustic evening, and a Christmas Day service.

In their decision report, planners said: “The administration use would be within a minor area of the rear section of the building and would not impact on neighbour amenity in any way.

“The social activities proposed, by and large could be carried out without any impact on neighbours’ amenity in terms of noise disturbance. It is considered that the occasional uses, where some amplification of music would be required, are unlikely to result in a significant noise disturbance to residential neighbours and given these are occasional uses, a noise impact assessment is not necessary.

“The applicant advised that the types of foods to be prepared in the kitchen would be very minimal. The area would be used for preparing fresh fruit and biscuit snack for the toddler group, microwave for staff lunches, an oven for reheating sausage rolls, pizzas or similar and hob for reheating soup or making rice to go with food brought to the building in slow cookers.

“The condition advised by Environmental Health that a flue duct should discharge ideally three metres above the highest surrounding buildings is not considered reasonable in view of the types of food to be prepared and cooked which is unlikely to affect neighbouring properties from cooking odours.”

Roads officials had raised initial concerns over the level of parking on the site but, following additional information from the applicant, they were content these would be sufficient to cater for the demand generated by the change of use.

The planners added: “Class 10 allows other uses such as a creche, day nursery or day centre, and a public hall, which required consideration of parking provision, operating hours and noise issues. A restriction to church social and administrative activities at this site is therefore considered appropriate in this case.”

J D Smith & Sons are expected to move to alternative premises close by in January.