Supermarket chain Aldi has been granted planning permission to build a fourth branch in Brighton and Hove.
Approval was granted by Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee subject to conditions being agreed within three months.
Forty-three people objected to the proposal, for a site at the top of King George VI Avenue, known locally as Snaky Hill, while 22 people wrote letters or emails in support.
The application for a building covering 1,880 square metres (sqm) would include 1,315 sqm of retail space and 107 parking spaces.
At Hove Town Hall yesterday (Wednesday 4 September), councillors asked why no extra exit was planned for the roundabout at the junction with the A27 and Dyke Road Avenue.
They were told that National Highways was “not open” to another exit on the roundabout.
Labour councillor Tobias Sheard said that the new supermarket would serve people moving into Toads Hole Valley where the owner has planning permission for 1,000 new homes.
Councillor Sheard said: “Having somewhere to feed people near by is a really good idea and it’s one of the prerequisites you need for trying to encourage people to move in to begin with.
“On top of that, with the 21 running up there, for everyone who lives to the west of Dyke Road and around Hove Park, you’re giving them the only supermarket they can access by bus.”
Labour councillor Maureen Winder said that people would need supermarkets if they were going to move to an area.
Councillor Winder said: “You’re not going to get the development and the housing without people feeling they have a supermarket locally and they can access those kind of services.
“There are a lot of areas in the city which are without amenity and people have had to cope with that so it’s a really good proposal to get this under way now and that will encourage the development of better housing in the area.”
Conservative councillor Carol Theobald said that the applicant did not know the area because they seemed unaware of the dense traffic in the morning and late afternoon in Dyke Road Avenue. She voted against the scheme.
Councillor Theobald said: “The traffic is horrendous just going on to that roundabout and this will make it even worse. I am worried about the traffic going into the site because I think that will be terrible as well.”
Green councillor Sue Shanks also voted against the scheme, sharing her concerns about the environmental impact and the council’s “net zero” ambitions.
Councillor Shanks said: “That’s a nice area just opposite Three Cornered Copse. There’s a path that goes through that. If it’s lit, it will ruin that whole area. It’s a big area for people going for country walks.
“I don’t believe people will go by bus. Supermarkets are by their nature places that people travel to in their car, load them up and drive home again.
Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh also voted against the plans.
Aldi is required to agree terms with the council. They include a proposed £150,000 contribution towards maintaining the half-hour frequency of the 21 bus, funding the evening service and the cost of improving bus stops.
The company is also being asked to spend £30,000 on upgrading the neighbouring A27 Brighton bypass junction, sometimes referred to as the Devil’s Dyke interchange.
If only Aldi ran doctor’s surgeries and medical centers eh ? Perhaps they could also branch in sewage works other infrastructure projects as well.
This is brilliant news.
Accessible from the A27 and therefore replaces any need to travel to Holmbush Tesco, because Asda Hollingbury is so rubbish it isn’t worth bothering to go there. Asda might as well shut down now, and do us all a favour.
This is really great news.
How do you know Aldi is going to be any better? Think I’d rather still go to Holmbush Tesco. Tesco provides for more choice then any Aldi shop.
Brilliant! The residents of Upper Withdean and Westdene can now walk to their local store and combine their daily excerise with their shopping rather than having to tackle the uphill slog back from Waitrose, Hove…
As if that roundabout wasn’t already enough of a deathtrap for motorcyclists, cyclists & pedestrians! This can only make things worse.
Why are pedestrians walking on a roundabout, should use the pavements like normal people.
Mainly because they can !
In places there is no pavement. So pedestrian have to walk on the grass. They have no choice
What pavement!
They have to cross the roads that lead onto the roundabout because that is how roundabouts work – with roads leading onto them.
There is no pavement in parts.
Providing Aldi put a doctors surgery, dentists. Sell only locally sourced produce. Improve all the traffic congestion? Might be OK?
But it will prove a disaster! King George VI and the A23/27 intersections are already chaotic!
There are already enough supermarkets! How come that is the councils priority? There is a Sainsburys, a Lidl, a Waitrose? Tescos large & small ? But hey ho? Drs and dentists aren’t a priority with this council?
Destruction of our environment is? How much is Aldi paying the council for this?
So wrong very very wrong on all counts
The council can only decide on the planning application in front of it. It isn’t a case that this is top of their list of priorities.
That there are other supermarkets in the city isn’t a valid planning ground to reject this application.
That the city needs more GP surgeries or dentists or whatever isn’t a valid ground to deny this application.
Actually, Brighton is very poorly served by supermarkets.
Sainsbury’s is decent, Holmbush Tesco is excellent, and Lidl in Shoreham is decent enough, though slow to check out. All the others are rather limited. I’m not paying Waitrose prices and anyway, I don’t have a Range Rover and duck lips.
Asda should just close, and it’s a shame that Lidl just can’t take over the Hollingbury and Marina stores.
I live at the top end of Valley Drive and it is already a nightmare trying to exit into Dyke Road Avenue. I can foresee huge traffic queues forming along Valkey Drive. Not well thought out at all.
What has the 21 bus got to do with this development. It goes nowhere near it.
If there is a route to serve, then the buses will re-route accordingly.
The 26 and 46 didn’t go to the Asda site before there was an Asda.
I use the Devil’s Dyke interchange almost daily. I’m looking at a map and thinking how you improve it, because it’s a pretty decent design already. Maybe a Turbo Roundabout? Some dedicated turns? Flyovers?
The major cock-up on the A27 is not this junction, but the lack of an interchange for westbound traffic from Lewes trying to go north on the A23. Having to come down to a busy roundabout at Patcham is insane. Whoever designed that or approved it needs to be sacked. The danger of having stationary cars backed up on the bypass at rush hours is serious. I often carry on to the Hove junction, cross over, and come back.
!!!! 100 new homes ,i guess not social housing , ,shared waste of time ownership, strange choice of supermarket in that area and i think we all know starts with one shop before u know it , a Halfords and prob another sofa shop,,, why doesnt ALDSI f off to worthing where there isnt one, maybe a john lewis more suiutable at end of dyke road,,, SNAKEY HILL, SNAKEY PLANNERS AND COUNCELLORS , SOMEONE SHOULD randomley drug test Hove Town Hall ,EXCLUDING POLICE OBVIOUSLY…. WE DO NOT NEED ANOTHER OUTSKIRT SHOP ,PLENTY OF CHOICE AVAIL, ALL minutes to access on A27…..