Council refuses to approve supermarket extension

A supermarket's unauthorised expansion has been refused retrospective planning consent after one Bradford councillor said it had shown "no respect for authority".

Asia Superstore on Kensington Street had built the extension over an existing six-space car park for flats above the store.

Bradford Council's planning panel said the spaces had been intended for people living in the eight flats and they had been left without any off-street parking.

Councillor Chris Herd said: "I'm very much for business and people working to improve themselves. But applications like this give a bad impression – there is no thought or respect for authority."

The Asia Superstore is on the ground floor of Kensington Hall, which was originally built in the 19th Century as a church but has more recently been used as a community hall, dance studio and social club.

A 785 sq ft (73 sq m) extension to the building was built without planning permission in January to store and display fruit and vegetables, and retrospective planning application for the work was submitted in June.

The application said the work was "part of an ongoing effort to modernise the property and better meet the needs of the local community", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Council planning officers recommended the plans be refused at a meeting of on Wednesday, despite it receiving 74 letters of support.

Officers said the modern extension was "visually discordant" with the stone-built Kensington Hall.

They added that one of the conditions of a 2016 planning application to convert the upper floors of the building into eight flats was the parking spaces that have now been built over.

Madihah Ashraf, one of the applicants, said any issues raised by planners "could be fully resolved", and said neighbouring Willow Street had plenty of on-street parking, so the occupants of the flats did not need their parking spaces.

She said: "Only one resident of the flats owns a vehicle. There is a strong level of community support for this proposal."

She said the company was willing to make changes to the extension to improve its appearance.

But planning officer Andrew Moxon said any changes would need to be so dramatic that the application would have to be resubmitted.

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