COFFEE GOES COLD
Caffeine giant pulls its plans
PLANS for a drive-thru Starbucks in Bangor city centre have been scrapped – at least for now.
The coffee giant submitted an application in December to build a drive-thru cafe on green space and shrub land on the junction with Deiniol Road and Sackville Road.
The scheme faced considerable opposition locally with Bangor City Council and the Civic Society coming out against the development.
Now the planning application to Gwynedd Council has been withdrawn.
A spokesman for developers Morbaine, who submitted the plan on behalf of Starbucks, said: “The application has been withdrawn, however we will be looking at re-submitting - potentially on the same site.”
They did not say when the application may be submitted.
Bangor Civic Society were against the proposal and said the plans meant “Bangor’s iconic black poplar trees were under threat once again.”
Chair Don Mathew branded the application “crazy”.
He continued: “The site is on the corner of the Asda roundabout, the most difficult road junction in Bangor. It is the last place you want to increase traffic levels.”
Bangor City Council also had concerns over traffic at the roundabout on the junction and the removal of several trees.
The cafe would have created 10 jobs and was set to go before Gwynedd Council planning committee.
In 2011 Starbucks announced plans to introduce 200 drive-thru venues, which would create around 5,000 jobs, a chain in Bridgend in South Wales was the 38th.
Costa coffee is also moving into the drive-thru market. The first Costa drivethru in Wales opened in Swansea 11 months ago.
Plans for a drive-thru Starbucks on the A55 near Bangor are unaffected and still due to go ahead.
In December the compnay said work would start on the cafe in 2016, with the creation of 40 jobs.
There was a previous application to fell the trees at the junction in Bangor in 2012.
To stop the application Gwynedd Council issued a temporary Tree Preservation Order and this was later made permanent.