Double permissions for Forest Lodge Garden Centre and Birdworld
October 20th 2009
Ambitious development is approved by planners at 14-acre Forest Lodge and Birdworld site
Malcolm Scott Consultants Ltd has gained double planning permissions for ambitious development at the 14-hectare joint Forest Lodge and Birdworld site.
Previous planning applications were withdrawn after being called in by the Secretary of State for a call in inquiry. Malcolm Scott Consultants worked closely with scheme designer Massingale & Co to address concerns the Secretary of State had expressed.
♦ The major new Garden Centre development provides fundamentally improved facilities.
♦ The Garden Centre building floor-space will nearly double from 3,229m² to 6,341m².
♦ The Covered Open-Sided Canopies will increase from 1,297m² to 1,650m².
♦ The Outdoor Plant Sales Area will be increased by a third from 1,563m² to 1,916m².
♦ There will be a total of 538 car parking spaces, 209 permanent and 329 overflow.
♦ Outline planning permission granted for enabling development, being 5 detached houses, to partly meet the capital cost of the Visitor Centre and Education Building at Birdworld.
♦ Closer links between Forest Lodge Garden Centre and Birdworld, including a single storey pet shop link building, and a light railway around Birdworld.
♦ There will be highly sustainable measures which will include energy generated on site from a mix of ground source heat pumps, photo-voltaic panels, roof-mounted solar panels, wood fuel heating in co-operation with adjoining Forestry Commission woodlands, water harvesting and grey water systems.
♦ Provision of bus stop and shelter, footpath and cycleway.
♦ There will be sympathetic extensive landscape proposals including the retention of many Tree Preservation Order trees
♦ The combined sites will employ some 300 staff.
Managing Director Roger Head said: "We are delighted this long running saga has reached a successful conclusion. Malcolm Scott Consultants have successfully pre-empted a second call in by their expert and wide-ranging knowledge of town planning and garden centres."