ALDI has been given the green light to open a new supermarket in Keynsham.
Bath and North East Somerset Council’s planning committee has voted to grant planning permission for the new store on the former Brincliffe Nursery site on the A4 Bath Road.
Although eastbound cars would be able to enter the Aldi car park from the A4, traffic would have to leave via World’s End Lane, at the rear of the site, opposite Keynsham Recycling Centre.
The committee’s decision went against the recommendation of the council’s own planning officers, who warned that the store should be turned down due to the potential for it to cause major delays on Pixash Lane and Broadmead Lane.
Despite these concerns, almost 200 people lodged their support of the plans with the council, while just 20 raised objections.
Aldi’s Elliott Saunders told the planning committee at its meeting on June 10: “The message is clear: Keynsham wants and needs an Aldi.”
A traffic-modelling exercise commissioned by B&NES Council had suggested that, if the store were approved, significant queues were likely to form on the Broadmead Lane approach to the A4 Broadmead roundabout, as well as on Pixash Lane, with queues extending back from the A4 junction to the World’s End Lane junction.
But Mr Saunders said the predicted congestion was due to other planned development and would happen whether the Aldi was built or not.
It is relatively unusual for planning officers to recommend rejecting a planning application over traffic impact, but the council’s highways team had warned that the new supermarket could lead to drivers making dangerous manoeuvres to get out of traffic jams.
Planning committee member Hal McFie (Keynsham East, Liberal Democrat), who represents the area where it would be built, said he had been excited to get an Aldi.
He said: “We know that we need it – our residents have told us on the door.”
But he said he would vote against the plan.
“I waited two hours to get out of Waitrose on one particular day. So the traffic has to be right – and it clearly isn’t.”
B&NES planning committee was tied 4-4 in a vote to refuse the plans. Councillors later voted 6-2 to delegate power to their officers to grant planning permission, subject to new conditions.
As previously reported in the Voice, Aldi’s longtime rival, Lidl, also wants to build a supermarket in the town. It plans to submit a planning application for the site currently occupied by Jewson in Broadmead Lane, directly opposite Waitrose.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporting Service
Aldi plan for new Keynsham supermarket approved
