Expansion of a Northwich company is set to go ahead after a planning application was approved.
Cheshire West and Chester planning officers have backed an application by the storage firm SureStore on Chester Way Retail Park Chester to expand its current operations.
Permission has been granted for an additional 29 storage units on the company’s car park, spanning an area of around 557sq m and single storey in height.
A planning statement submitted in support said the scheme would expand the site’s self-storage capacity and in doing so ‘broaden the provision of an important service to local residents and businesses’.
The plans had originally been for 46 additional units, but these were recently amended.
The planning statement said the availability of flexible and scalable self-storage was ‘an important supporting service’ to many small businesses, in particular start-ups and smaller-scale enterprises experiencing fast growth.
It added: “Self-storage units allow such businesses to obtain space on demand as they grow on a flexible and scalable basis without the need to commit to longer-term contracts for larger fixed-format commercial space when doing so would represent a substantial risk and cost commitment.”
The plans said the new units would result in some loss of parking spaces but would still leave 11 bays, including two accessible spaces and two electric vehicle charging points.
Recommending approval, a planning officer’s report concluded: “It is considered that the area is broadly commercial in character, and that the proposed buildings, whilst not visually assimilating with the existing, far larger, simple form industrial buildings completely, would be of a similar commercial character, and would be of a scale, location, and design, to not be a prominent feature of the street scene or the nearby vicinity.”
