New drive-thru restaurant in place of office block approved in Whittlesey

A new drive-thru restaurant in Whittlesey has been granted planning approval.

The new restaurant will first be preceded by the demolition on an existing office building at land on the junction on King’s Dyke (A605) and Funtham’s Lane.

Applicants Topland has confirmed the opening hours to be from 5am to 11pm seven days a week.

The new fast food takeaway will include 22 car parking spaces, a reduction from the current 34.

Asda, which owns the IPL warehouse just north of the site, objected to the application on the grounds of loss of employment floor space of what is considers to be a “high-quality premises” and its location.

The objection stated: “Drive thru restaurants are a leisure use and defined as a 'main town centre use.' The application site is 'out- of- centre' and it is not allocated for the type of use proposed.

We would suggest that the proposed car parking provision is not sufficient to accommodate anticipated demand.

"This would lead to overspill parking onto the surrounding road network, to the detriment of road safety and the expeditious movement of traffic.

"There has been no assessment undertaken of the likely throughout of the drive-thru facility and thus we have concerns about potential blocking back onto the local highway network, from the drivethru window.

"The distance between the likely window location and the site entrance is estimated to be around 35 – 40m, as such if any more than seven cars were queuing, entry to the car park would be blocked, leading to vehicles waiting to enter the site siting in the carriageway on Peterborough Road."

The Local Highways Authority also objected on the bases that there was no safe means for pedestrians entering the site, requiring them to walk in the carriageway.

Planning officers recommended the application for approval, however, with a series of conditions.

The application has now been granted with conditions including that details of a lighting scheme must be submitted prior to work commencing, one for soft landscaping the area and a plan for waste management and the number of bins that will be places around the site.