Aldi’s Devon store dream rejected despite record public support

Budget supermarket giant Aldi has had its plans for a new Devon store thrown out, despite receiving its highest ever level of public support.

More than 1,200 local people backed the application for a new store at Ivybridge, and the German firm’s real estate director, Elliott Saunders, told South Hams Council’s planning committee that was the most ever for a UK store.

READ NEXT: Huge transformation gives Dartmoor park fresh new look

But after three hours of debate, councillors decided to back their officers, who said the store off Rutt Lane, near the town’s railway station, would be ‘overbearing’ for neighbouring properties.

Michael Gibson, whose home backs on to the planned supermarket site, said the store would create an ‘unacceptable’ visual impact, along with noise from deliveries and machinery.

He also said it would impact the livelihood of other businesses in the centre of Ivybridge.

He told the meeting that people buying new homes in Elm Park had known the site was earmarked for business use and a possible doctors’ surgery, but not a supermarket.

However, Mr Saunders said the level of public support for the plan had been ‘extraordinary’.

The new Aldi would represent a multi-million-pound investment in the community and would create local jobs.

The design of the building had been changed, with the roofline lowered, in response to some of the issues raised earlier in the planning process.

“We have responded to the officers’ concerns,” he said. “We moved the building further away and we lowered the roof height. We are at a point now where we don’t believe we can do any more.”

Cllr Matt Steele (Lib Dem, Ivybridge East), who also chairs the Ivybridge Chamber of Commerce, said he did not believe a new store would harm town centre trade.

Cllr Georgina Allen (Green, Totnes) said she felt the plan showed a store ‘shoe-horned’ into the site. “It will be convenient, but it comes at an expense,” she said. “There are also questions of air quality, traffic, food miles and out-of-town shopping.”

Committee chair Cllr Mark Long (Ind, Salcombe and Thurlestone) summed up: “We can all see the benefits, but I think everybody can see the downsides.

“People will come and go for their shopping, but there are people who are going to have to live with this 24 hours a day.

“It’s a site for something, but it may not be the site for something like this.”

Members voted by seven to two to reject the plan.