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Local support and how it helped to secure planning permission for aldi in Crewe

Against officer's recommendation for refusal we helped Aldi achieve planning consent for a new store in Crewe and here's how we did it.

The Challenge

Aldi wanted to demolish a former pub, a building of local significance, within Crewe to introduce a neighbourhood  foodstore. Aldi had a long running history with the site having previously withdrawn one application and a subsequent application being refused at committee level, on each occasion the planning officer had recommended refusal due to the loss of the building.

Since the refusal of the original planning application, the pub had ceased trading due to a significant downturn in trade and the site was fast becoming a local eyesore. Despite this and the fact that Aldi had marketed the site for over a year without interest, the planning officer subsequently recommended refusal once again.

The Solution

The key to the success of this consultation was focused on identifying and harnessing community support – in order to give committee members confidence to vote against the officer’s recommendation they needed to be left in no doubt that there was a ground swell of local support for the proposals.

To achieve this, we issued a designed community newsletter which stressed:

• The public house is now redundant – standing neglected and empty
• In its neglected state the site is fast becoming a local eyesore, attracting anti-social behavior
• Aldi has addressed previous concerns and marketed the site for over a year without success
• The site, as such, faces an uncertain future

This quickly achieved a bank of well over a 100 outright supporters.

Once the supporters were uncovered, the next step was to ensure we identified opportunities where this support could be motivated. During the submission stages of the application the following was undertaken:

• Encouraging all supporters to write into the Council’s planning file through tailored supporter letters and telephone calls
• Encouraging supporters to contact the local ward members directly, to ensure community representatives were aware of the positive local feeling
• Positive media relation work, providing the local journalists with the wide number of local people supporting the application
• Continued contact and liaison with community representatives

Aldi was disappointed to learn once again that despite the closure of the public house and the detailed marketing exercise that the planning officer was still recommending the application be refused. Therefore on the lead up to the committee, we carried out the following activity:

• A comprehensive designed briefing document for committee members which addressed the reason for refusal, stressed the amount of local support, clearly illustrated the current state of the site and why an Aldi foodstore was the most suitable option for its future
• Provided all committee members with copies of all responses received from local residents
• Made telephone contact with all supporters to encourage them  to contact committee members directly to stress their support
• Identified two local residents to speak in support at committee
• Encouraged numerous residents to attend the committee meeting to demonstrate their support for the proposals
• Continued contact with the local ward members, who via conversations commented that they had been contacted by a number of supporters
• The local ward member spoke in support at committee – the ward member in question was also a member of the local Historical Society, which held particular weight given the former public house’s significance

The Outcome

As a result of clearly communicating the wide spread local support for the Aldi store, councillors unanimously voted to approve the application against officer recommendation for refusal - a great result for our client.

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