Stockport School of Gymnastics Planning Design & Access Statement for Change of Use of Unit 1 Pepper Road, Hazel Grove Planning, Design & Access Statement: Revision 05/04/10 Unit 1 Pepper Road, Hazel Grove Summary Overview Stockport School of Gymnastics (SSoG) is a Community Amateur Sports Club based at Dialstone Recreation Centre Target Life Offerton. The Club is a British Gymnastics affiliated organisation and holds Sport England Club Mark accreditation, evidence of the Club offering a safe, child friendly training environment with a proven ethos for development and improvement. The Club‟s development plan, approved by British Gymnastics, identifies a number of drivers for moving from our current leisure centre base to a permanent training facility; foremost amongst these are: i) An aspiration to improve the performance and competition results of the Club Squad through providing an enhanced training environment and attracting more highly qualified coaches ii) A desire to broaden the Club‟s recreational gymnastics programme for the benefit of the local community, particularly South Stockport‟s young people. Current arrangements at Dialstone are not amenable to this goal and in recent years the Club has investigated and progressed a number of unsuccessful alternative options in support of the above vision. This has now become a critical issue for the club as the Dialstone Centre is to be disposed of by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, tenders due in by 9th August 2010. The Club believes that the opportunity described within this document, based on the change of use of an industrial unit (Unit 1 Pepper Road, Hazel Grove) offers the optimum balance of benefit versus impact for all key stakeholders including the local community, surrounding industrial neighbours, Stockport Sports Trust and SSoG members and associates. Whilst the change of use is recognised as being outside core planning policy the document addresses how the change of use would still successfully fulfil the underlying principles of these policies. Summary Planning Policy Assessment In preliminary discussions with Stockport Planning Department three key elements of concern regarding compliance of the change of use with planning policy were identified: i) Impact on employment in a designated UDP employment area ii) Adverse traffic impact iii) Adverse impact on sustainable travel Detailed responses to these concerns are covered in the body of the document and summarised below: Page 2 of 59 Planning, Design & Access Statement: Revision 05/04/10 Unit 1 Pepper Road, Hazel Grove Employment The change of use from industrial warehousing (B8) to leisure (D2) with office support (B2) is, notionally, contra to the Stockport Unitary Development Plan which aims to encourage economic growth and development through protecting industrial employment. However SSoG believe there are strong mitigating factors in support of the proposed leisure use: i) Factory associated warehousing will likely provide less employment per unit area than a well utilised gymnastics facility. SSoG have evidence of another gym club occupying a similar industrial unit employing 8 full time and 20 part time jobs; the leasers of Unit 1 Pepper Road indicated that prior to marketing the unit 2-3 jobs were associated with the space. ii) SSoG believe that a proportion of the potential leisure employment would be complimentary to that of the industrial estate through offering lunchtime and early evening leisure provision to employees on the estate by way of fitness, health and dance classes together with associated café facilities. iii) The warehousing unit being investigated has been advertised for lease for over six months and SSoG have confirmation of five additional units on Pepper Road being advertised for lease, indicating that there is little demand for such industrial space in the south of the borough. iv) Based on industry norms (discussed in the document) these units would support 149 jobs on the estate. Loss of a single unit therefore would not make a significant impact on industrial employment potential, irrespective of potential leisure use employment. Traffic & Parking In a previously unsuccessful change of use application by SSoG for an industrial unit on Newby Road, Hazel Grove, unease was expressed regarding lack of parking capacity and potential local traffic congestion. For Pepper Road these issues are not considered to present a concern because: i) The use of the facility will not coincide with the morning and evening peak traffic flows thus ease of entry and egress from the estate will be no worse than at present ii) The facility has a large car park directly adjacent to the unit (capacity of 70 bays, although MDA only have an agreement with the owner. Rexington Developments, to use 33 ) as well as 29 spaces within the MDA compound. A traffic survey by SSoG for the current peak use at Dialstone on Saturday morning found a maximum of 33 parked cars. iii) The location of Unit 1 is well separated from the main Pepper Road artery via a side road which is not heavily utilised. Congestion, caused through constrained access for heavy goods vehicles, will not therefore present a problem. Sustainability and Green Travel SSoG recognises that Pepper road is not ideally located to fully support sustainable transport (e.g. only a single bus route exists on the main Bramhall Moor Lane and the nearest station is not within easy walking distance) however SSoG will Page 3 of 59 Planning, Design & Access Statement: Revision 05/04/10 Unit 1 Pepper Road, Hazel Grove undertake to implement and/or encourage a number of sustainable travel initiatives within it‟s membership: i) Car sharing is already used widely by parents of gymnasts. This will be further encouraged and incentivised. ii) SSoG will investigate with local schools whether a similar arrangement to the “swim-bus” principle could be established to foster school use of the facility whilst minimising the number of vehicle journeys. iii) SSoG intends to maintain recreational classes at Dialstone. This will minimise the volume of traffic needing to cross the Borough, in particular across the A6. iv) A high quality bicycle shed and showers will be provided to encourage the use of bicycle transport Wider Policy Considerations From the wider policy perspective the change off use of Unit 1 supports a number of SMBC and Government initiatives: i) Youth inclusion – the recreational classes are open to all abilities, both genders and ages 4 to18. SSoG supports the Stockport leisure key scheme. ii) Active Stockport strategy – the facility would support the objectives of this initiative. iii) Child obesity and prescription exercise – gymnastics is well recognised as a sport that can positively impact health and wellbeing from mild stretching exercises for older participant to rigorous work-outs for younger people. iv) Olympics legacy – the government has a stated aim to use the 20102 London Olympics as a spring board for sustained improvements in sporting performance. GB is expected to perform well in gymnastics and there is likely to be a significant increase in demand for involvement in the sport. Currently this demand would be very poorly catered for in Stockport. Conclusion The change of use described in this document is recognised, on face value, to fall short of specific planning policy objectives. However SSoG believes that there are strong mitigating measures that can successfully be implemented to alleviate these key planning concerns. Implementation of the controls, together with the contribution to wider Government and SMBC health and inclusion policies, suggest the change of use should be recognised as offering a highly beneficial asset to the community of South Stockport and, as such, should be carefully considered for approval. Page 4 of 59 Planning, Design & Access Statement: Revision 05/04/10 Unit 1 Pepper Road, Hazel Grove Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 7 2 Background ........................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Stockport School of Gymnastics .............................................................................. 7 2.2 Current Training Venue (Target Life Dialstone) ........................................................ 8 2.3 Current Arrangements ............................................................................................. 9 2.4 The future of Gymnastics at Target Life Dialstone ................................................... 9 2.5 Future Status of Target Life Dialstone ...................................................................... 9 2.6 The Facility Vision and Specification ...................................................................... 10 3 Unit 1 Pepper Road ............................................................................................. 10 4 Planning History ................................................................................................. 11 4.1 Unit 1 Pepper Rd ................................................................................................... 11 4.2 Previous Applications by SSoG ............................................................................. 12 5 The Proposed Scheme ....................................................................................... 13 5.1 Operational Strategy .............................................................................................