Yes to early morning deliveries for Worcester supermarket

A supermarket will be allowed to carry out 6am deliveries after a government inspector overruled the council.

Budget supermarket Aldi had asked Worcester City Council to approve plans to allow 6am deliveries to its Tybridge Street store in Worcester but the request was turned down by councillors over fears it would be too disruptive for those living nearby.

The supermarket appealed to the government’s planning inspector in a bid to get the decision overturned and won.

Planning inspector Helen Smith said allowing earlier deliveries would have a “low impact.”

Aldi said it had told drivers to keep noise to a minimum and deliveries to the Tybridge Street supermarket used wooden pallets instead of noisier metal cages.

No noise complaints had been made according to Worcestershire Regulatory Services.

In a report outlining the approval, the planning inspectorate said: “The proposed hours are the same as those used temporarily during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This temporary permission which allowed deliveries at the store to take place from 6am, has effectively been a trial period.

“This temporary period also covered the warmer summer months when neighbouring residents would have been more likely to open their windows.

“It is noted that during this temporary period there were no noise complaints made to either the store or the local authority.”

While a decision would usually have been delegated to the council’s planning officers, the proposal was discussed by the planning committee at the request of St John’s councillor Richard Udall over the potential disruption it could cause for residents living nearby.

Cllr Udall asked the planning committee to be “sensitive to the location, geography and residential amenity of the area” and allow people living nearby to “have some peace in the morning and not be disturbed by deliveries.”

He said neighbours, many of whom were elderly and vulnerable, should not have to put up with the “crashing and banging, running engines, vehicles reversing and all the other noises” that earlier deliveries would bring.

Planning officers had recommended to the committee that it allowed Aldi to make earlier deliveries as it ‘would not make a significant impact’ on residents “given the distance to the loading area and the established noise and activity.”

“Given that no adverse issues arose in the previously granted 12-month permission, it is considered reasonable to allow them to be extended permanently,” the report said.