FLATS TO GO ON PHARMACY SITE
FLATS will be built on the site of a Widnes pharmacy despite continued fears over parking and highway safety.
The proposals to knock down Appleton Village Pharmacy and build 12 apartments were given the green light by planning chiefs.
A similar scheme was thrown out in July last year after Halton Borough Council highways officers raised concerns over road safety and parking, but their objections were later overruled by a planning inspector.
At the planning meeting at
Runcorn Town Hall, members were told that the concerns of the highways department had not changed, but that the inspector’s decision meant any move by the committee to refuse the application was unlikely to be upheld.
Cllr Rob Polhill, said: “I have some concerns because it’s very, very busy around there and there’s a lot going on in that small area.
“I wouldn’t want to see the public car park at St Bede’s being taken up by residents of this development.”
Cllr Chris Carlin added: “I was on that first meeting. We tried our best to make it right but on that occasion the appeal’s gone against us, so we’ve got no choice but to pass it.”
The development includes two-bedroom apartments, with a ground floor commercial unit which the pharmacy will move in to.
There will also be reconfigured parking which would form part of a wider housing scheme, with 24 apartments on nearby land currently nearing completion.
Addressing the meeting, Jon Moorhouse of architecture firm Constructive Thinking Studio, said the pharmacy was highly thought of in the community and was the first in the UK to offer Covid vaccines.
He added that the applicant had been contacted by Halton Council in 2017 about a lack of suitable housing in the area.
“A scheme had subsequently been developed to build on the rear of the land but leave the front free, because the NHS had also approached him about building a new Appleton Village GP surgery there.
But the GP surgery had since unveiled plans to move to Upton Rocks, with this scheme being developed instead.