It’s coming towards the end of an eventful year for Havant Civic Society. We’re quietly proud of our achievements, not least of which have been the result of Ann’s and Anna’s efforts in the Gazebo Garden not just in the botanical sense but also with the presentation of events like the first Havant St Lucy’s day celebration in the run up to Christmas.
On a sadly more serious note, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by last week’s re-submission of the 39 West Street ‘Dominos Pizza’ takeaway planning application. The timing of this application follows an oft-used approach by developers with contentious applications, sliding it through during the holiday period when the public are normally distracted.
Once again, the application was recorded as ‘suitable for delegated decision’ by a planning department who are themselves distracted by a notable lack of management. Fortunately, the St Faith’s Ward Councillors have responded quickly to our request for support and the application has been ‘red-carded’ to ensure that it will be debated in public by the Development Management Committee in the new year.
We need your help once again please. Little, if anything, has changed with the re-application, other than the submission of a 39 page technical traffic note which in our view presents little of substance. Stripping away the largely irrelevant content, including three pages in Welsh, at its heart this document ‘details’ a survey of West Street car parking during a three and a half hour period on a single November Friday evening. This primarily relates to the spaces occupied by 6 vehicles in the yellow box in the image above. We are already monitoring use of the car parking over a more representative timescale.
Apart from the obvious issues of parking, both for delivery drivers at the rear of the site and for customer collections, we have a serious concern about the impact on traffic in Park Road South. The delivery drivers will be turning into and out of the site using the entrance between Rothman’s Accountants and Ian’s hairdresser, marked by the double yellow arrow in the image. Those of us who use Park Road South regularly will be aware of the impact of traffic turning into and out of Burger King and Bulbeck Road and if this application is approved, then the Dominos delivery traffic will significantly add to that traffic chaos.
The six ward Councillors on the Development Management Committee on October 18th rejected this application unanimously and given that there is no material change to this reapplication we expect that the same result should apply to this current application.
However: Do not assume that because you may have objected to the previous application, you need do nothing. Previous comments will not be considered and new objections must be raised. If you agree with us that this re-submitted application should be refused, please take the time to submit an objection by taking this link.
To view a summary of all previous articles on this website relating to the previous application, please take this link.
Havant Civic Society 
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