Supporting documents - Renfrewshire Council

3.3
(e)
Location with respect to town centres, airports and major
business/industrial development areas
This criterion requires large hotels to be located within or adjacent to
town centres; within the Airport Campus or in association with major
businesses or industrial development areas. (Our emphasis)
Firstly, the applicant would challenge whether this is a large hotel in the
normal sense of the term. This is a budget hotel comprising of beds and
restaurant which provides breakfast and meals to customers. There are
no conference or leisure facilities provided as part of the proposed
development – facilities which are normally to be found in large hotels.
Moreover, the hotel now comprises 30% fewer beds than originally
proposed and is therefore smaller in size than the original scheme. The
application site is not located within a town centre but is very well located
with respect to the Airport and nearby business park. Section 5 of the
Planning Statement submitted with the application, considered the
location of the site in some detail. It is contended that the application site
is located “in association with major business or industrial development
areas” and therefore meets the requirements of criterion (e).
Officers are respectfully reminded that compliance with planning policy is
only the start of the assessment of any planning application and that
officers are required to also consider material considerations. It is the
applicant’s contention that the site is located between the key areas of
the airport and the business park and will serve all areas extremely well
and is closer to these areas than the centre of Paisley. Moreover, with
respect to sequential site selection, Local Authorities are reminded in
paragraph 16 of SPP8 to adopt a flexible and pragmatic approach in
terms of their assessment of proposed development.
Overall, the proposed development complies with Policy IB11 in all respects
and that, when taken with the other material considerations relating to
application, it represents an 8
Walsingham Planning, Brandon House, King Street,
Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6DX
March 2010