Thumbs up for shed at former Hinckley sports ground

Plans to build an 95,000 sq ft industrial and logistics warehouse on the edge of a Leicestershire industrial estate have been given the go-ahead.

Councillors at Hinckley and Bosworth narrowly approved controversial proposals put forward by Hinckley Investments, a joint venture between Graftongate and Bridges Fund Management, for the five-acre former EMEB Sports and Social Club on Nutts Lane in Hinckley.

The outline application had been recommended for approval by planning officers in July this year, but deferred by the council’s planning committee due to concerns over the impact of the scheme on residents.

In response to the committee’s concerns, the applicant agreed to lower the height of the building by around half a metre, and remove the original hipped roof ends – replaced with a curved roof which would “reduce the perceived scale and massing of the building.”

In a planning statement, Hinckley Investments said the scheme represented a “substantial investment” in modern employment floorspace, on the edge of an established industrial estate.

But the proposals ran into opposition at Hinckley and Bosworth’s committee last week due to their potential impact on residents at four properties on Nutts Lane, with one councillor describing the development as a “monstrosity”.

“The report clearly identifies harm but as ever with planning its about balance, and about how that harm weighs against the benefits, and the NPPF is quite clear on the tilted balance that’s now applied in settlement boundaries in regards to this sorts of scheme,” said the council’s planning manager, Ed Stacey, advising councillors to adopt a measured response.

“It would be challenging to prove that the harm is so great as to warrant refusal, because they’ve done so much work to identify the properties that are particularly impacted.”

A report supplied by the council’s planning department afforded “limited negative weight” to the loss of light to “a small number of
windows in nearby residential properties”, and repeated a recommendation to approve the proposals put before the committee.

The scheme was approved by seven votes to four.

BHP Design provided designs for the application, while Quod provided planning consultancy.

• Plans and documents relating to the application can be found on Hinckley and Bosworth’s planning portal using reference: 25/01192/FUL