'High-quality' - Decision imminent on 4 new St Helens buildings with car parks and infrastructure
Councillors look set to approve plans for four employment buildings in St Helens.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the council’s planning committee will make a decision on a full application for the proposed development, on land east of James Roby Way. The proposals also include associated car parking, servicing areas, landscaping and infrastructure works.
A report to the committee says: “The site was previously part of the former United Glass manufacturing facility and is approximately 2.2ha in area. The site is located to the east of A570 James Roby Way and accessed from Langtree Way that also serves the Tesco Superstore (including petrol filling station), which is located to the north, and Glass Futures to the east of the application site.
“To the south are other employment or commercial uses, which include a car showroom and public house. The Totally Wicked Stadium is located 160 metres to the northeast of the site. Each building would have its own loading bay/service area and car parking areas; there would be landscaping throughout the site, but the predominant areas of landscaping are in the north and west areas of the site providing a green buffer to the boundaries with James Roby Way and Langtree Way.”
Furthermore, the report says the proposed development would deliver an “employment generating development” on a remediated brownfield site in a commercial area within the Liverpool City Region Life Sciences Innovation Zone.
“The proposal would have a high-quality design contributing positively to the visual amenity of the street scene on this key gateway site,” it adds. “The proposal would not result in harm to residential amenity of neighbouring occupiers or the capacity or safety of the highway network. The development would not harm ecological species or habitats, the development would have a high-quality landscaping scheme and would deliver biodiversity net gain.”
The application is recommended for approval subject to conditions, with authority delegated to the head of planning services to “add, remove or amend planning conditions as they deem necessary”, and the completion of a legal agreement to “secure the biodiversity net gain monitoring funds”.