Starbucks and Burger King drive-thrus approved for Widnes despite traffic concerns

Halton Council planning chiefs had thrown out plans for the development at Green Oaks Shopping Park following a site visit in September last year. A majority of members had expressed concerns about traffic build up, particularly the turning out of the main Morrisons/Green Oaks car park.

The applicant appealed the decision and the government’s planning inspector has now upheld their appeal. The council committee’s original decision came against the recommendations of planning officers, who warned the council could incur costs if an appeal was successful.

Inspector R Morgan, operating on behalf of the planning inspectorate, visited the site and also considered traffic modelling data. But he ultimately dismissed the concerns raised by Halton’s development management committee.

Issuing his judgement, he said: “I saw when visiting that the area can get busy, and the council has expressed concerns that additional traffic generated by the development could result in queues of cars stacking back to the highway. It is likely that a proportion of customers to the proposed drive-thru units would be making linked trips to the town centre, so would already be in the area.”

He added: “Based on the evidence provided, I am satisfied that, even if the situation was worse than suggested at busy times during the weekend, the proposal would be unlikely to generate significant delays, either on the internal access road or wider highway network. As any queuing vehicles would be stationary or moving very slowly, they would be unlikely to cause a risk to pedestrian safety.”

Now it has cleared the appeal, the scheme by AIM Land Limited will see two units built adjacent to each other in the existing car park. One will be occupied by fast food chain Burger King, and the other by coffee company Starbucks.

A letter submitted by planning agent Savills on behalf of AIM Land added that the plans would create up to 24 full time jobs, in addition to jobs created during the construction phase.

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The scheme will result in the loss of 125 existing parking spaces and the inspector raised the issue, agreeing that the carpark was ‘under-occupied’ at around 30 per cent capacity, adding that it may have been down to controversial car parking charges introduced on that particular car park.

He said: “When I visited the site, the adjacent Morrisons car park was busy, but there were very few cars in the central car park where the proposed drive-thru units would be sited.”

He added: “Under-occupation of the car park may be due to car parking charges, which according to the council were introduced in 2021. Whilst the imposition of parking charges may have shifted demand elsewhere, there is nothing to suggest that the charges will be lifted in the near future, so it seems likely that the central car park will continue to have significant spare capacity.”