PLANS to build a car sales unit in the car park of a supermarket have been refused by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council.

Morrisons in Worting Road had applied to the borough council to build a ‘car store’ which would offer vehicle valuation, sale and collection services to the supermarket’s customers.

However, members of the development control committee meeting held last Wednesday took the decision to refuse the plans saying the applicant had not ‘satisfied’ any of the concerns raised.

The application sought to create a 30sqm pod which would be sited within four car parking spaces to the north of the existing Morrisons car park.

Addressing the meeting Brookvale and Kings Furlong ward councillor, Cllr Michael Westbrook said: “The quantity of parking provided on this site isn’t the issue here. The problem for me is how Morrisons choose to allocate the areas.

“As I have said previously, they could have put these new businesses in other more industrialised and appropriate areas of the site if they chose to.

“Morrisons may of course wish to section this area off, purely as a new trading park, or they may wish to completely relocate their accessible parking to solve the issues.”

He added: “This council has just declared a climate emergency, and these types of applications do very little to help with that, idling engines, chemical spray and industrial noise, all close to valued trees and open space and my residents homes.”

During the debate councillor raised concerns that this would restrict the number of accessible parking spaces to the supermarket and chair of the committee, Councillor Paul Miller criticised the applicant for not being at the meeting to answer any questions.

Cllr Miller said: “The biggest issue with this application is the absence of Morrisons being in front of this committee to answer these exhaustive questions, which our officers have done a great job in clearing up.

“They are delinquent in there way they have presented this to the committee and this is the third time they have put in an application of this nature and have not been here.

He added: “We still have a very fuzzy idea of how this is going to operate, and the only way we are going to know that is have a proper representative from morrisons.

“I have no confidence in this application and that is why I cannot support it.”

The committee voted unanimously to reject the plans on the grounds that it didn’t protect accessible parking pays and did not fit the local plan.