Well, there it is. The highly controversial plan to turn space at Culcheth CPS Shopping Centre into flats has been approved, despite enough local objections to make the planning portal look like a village WhatsApp group after bin day.
The scheme, reported by Nathan Okell for the Warrington Guardian, concerns the Common Lane shopping centre, where owners Shivat Haminim Capital Ltd want to convert part of the first and second floors into 14 residential units. Warrington Borough Council has granted prior approval, subject to conditions.
To put that in plain Culcheth terms: residents, councillors and parish councils made a right old racket about it, and the council still let it through, but with a list of conditions hefty enough to suggest nobody is pretending this is straightforward.
This whole saga started getting properly heated early last year when first-floor tenants at the centre were served formal notices terminating their licences. Some traders had been there for decades, so the phrase cruelly evicted has understandably stuck. Shivat Haminim Capital Ltd said fire safety concerns were behind the decision, citing a report warning that critical works were needed within weeks to remove life-threatening hazards.
Now, fire safety is not something to be brushed aside, not for a second. But the controversy deepened when it was later reported that the fire service believed the work could have been done without evicting tenants. That detail has left a very sour taste locally, and frankly, you do not need to be a planning expert to understand why.
The first residential proposal was withdrawn last summer after around 150 letters of objection. Then it came back in November, attracted more objections, and was refused by Warrington Borough Council in January. Planning officers said some of the proposed apartments would be significantly affected by nearby noise sources, and the mitigation measures were not good enough.
After that brief reprieve, the plans returned again in February, seeking prior approval to change part of the first and second floors from office use to residential. This time, despite 116 objections from residents, plus objections from ward councillors, Culcheth and Glazebury Parish Council and Croft Parish Council, the application has been approved.
The existing centre includes the Sainsbury’s supermarket, seven retail units and an office currently used as a solicitor’s. The first-floor retail units are vacant, and the partial second floor is also vacant. According to the planning documents, all 14 proposed flats meet the relevant national space standards.
That is the positive bit, if we are being fair. Empty upper floors are not exactly a roaring triumph for village life, and housing does matter. A building sitting half-unused is not ideal, and nobody sensible wants Culcheth preserved in amber like a quaint museum exhibit with better parking complaints.
But the criticism is not nimby nonsense, whatever some clipboard enthusiast might imply. Residents raised concerns about housing need, poor living conditions, noise, loss of shops and jobs, pressure on local services, the character of the village and the fear that this could set a precedent for more development at the centre. Those are not fringe worries. Those are exactly the kind of issues that matter when you are changing the purpose of a village shopping centre.
Culcheth and Glazebury Residents Association said it was disappointed by the approval, noting that the council only granted the scheme with very heavy conditions. The group said those conditions reflected the concerns raised through its workshops and drop-ins, especially around the noise environment.
The association put it bluntly: if homes need sealed windows, specialist ventilation and acoustic walls just to be habitable, then perhaps this is not the right place for homes. Hard to argue with that, really. A flat should not feel like it has been engineered by NASA just so someone can sleep through the nearby noise.
So yes, Culcheth CPS Shopping Centre may be getting 14 flats. But let us not pretend this has arrived with bunting, brass bands and universal applause. It has arrived after evictions, objections, refusals, resubmissions and enough planning tension to power the Christmas lights on Common Lane.