A council has ordered the immediate closure of a service station for failing to implement essential road safety measures.
Mid Suffolk District Council has served a notice, relating to the breach of planning conditions, on EG On The Move’s Elmswell Services, just off the A14 at Kiln Lane, which opened just before Christmas and includes a service station, Spar convenience store, Greggs and Starbucks.
All businesses on the site must cease operation immediately until the conditions, relating to work on the access and exit points, are met.
EG On The Move’s Elmswell Services, just off the A14 at Kiln Lane, which opened just before Christmas, includes a service station, Spar convenience store, Greggs and Starbucks
Cllr Andrew Stringer, Mid Suffolk’s cabinet member for heritage, planning and infrastructure, said: “We do not take this action lightly and recognise the impact it will have on the businesses, but we have a duty to uphold planning laws which are there to protect our residents.”
Mid Suffolk’s planning committee previously refused the plans for the site – saying the design and layout, in particular the exit, would have a ‘severe and detrimental impact on highway safety’.
The authority raised concerns about the potential for accidents between vehicles exiting onto the A1088 and those using the existing A14 slip roads.
The decision was overturned on appeal by the planning inspectorate, subject to a number of conditions, relating to works on the access and exit points, to address the concerns.
These had to be met before the site opened – however, it did not happen, and this afternoon Mid Suffolk District Council served a breach of condition notice on site owner, Asda Express Limited.
If the notice is not complied with within three months, Mid Suffolk District Council can prosecute the site owners.
Cllr Stringer said: “The safety of the local community, including customers and staff at the site, will always come first.
“It is simply unacceptable that important safety work, set out clearly by the Planning Inspectorate, has not happened ahead of opening.”
The council also served an enforcement notice because there was not an approved construction management plan and construction surface water management plan in place before work started.
The planning inspectorate had said this was ‘so fundamental to the development that it would have been otherwise necessary to refuse permission’.