Drive-thru coffee shop in Bishop Burton approved despite objections

Plans for a coffee drive-thru in a village near Beverley have been approved despite claims it would see local shops exterminated by what objectors dubbed ‘Developer Daleks’.

East Riding Council’s Eastern Area Planning Sub-Committee approved plans for the drive-thru, on Killingwoldgraves Lane, Bishop Burton, despite nine objections including from the village’s parish council.

Parish councillor Richard Jones said developers Lovel Capital Projects were like the Doctor Who villains and would put local shops in nearby villages out of business. But the developer’s agent Jason Tate said the drive-thru serving passing motorists would not out-compete those businesses, while committee members said there were no reasons to stop it on planning grounds.

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Plans proposed building the drive-thru on a brownfield site off Killingwoldgraves Lane where approval was previously granted for employment development, despite being in the open countryside. The drive-thru would cover almost 172sqm on the inside with a yard covering a further roughly 31sqm, with cars set to go around the back of the building for coffee.

The planned drive-thru coffee shop in Bishop BurtonThe planned drive-thru coffee shop in Bishop Burton
The planned drive-thru coffee shop in Bishop Burton

Plans include 26 parking spaces including two for the disabled, two electric vehicle charging points, and room for four bikes. Developers’ documents stated the plans could create as many as 30 full-time jobs.

Councillors blocked plans for a petrol station next to the site proposed for the drive-thru in 2020 but the decision was later overturned on appeal. Mr Jones said the approval of the drive-thru would threaten local shops and the three villages they serve, Bishop Burton, Cherry Burton and Walkington.

He added the new jobs created would not benefit the area to the same extent high-skilled ones offered by the previous approval for employment use would.

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The parish councillor said: “The immediate purpose of these Developer Daleks is to exterminate the shops and services of villages and undermine their communities. You’ve been asked to approve a development from which litter will also be certain and against which we have no defence. These low-skilled jobs will not be an opportunity, they will be a dead end. These Developer Daleks will get their own way unless we stand up to them.”

Beverley Rural’s Coun Bernard Gateshill said the drive-thru would come on top of the petrol station, which remains under construction, and a Pret a Manger shop being built nearby. He added the unfinished petrol station would be left competing with an existing one nearby.

The ward member said: “I would be amazed if the second petrol station is ever built, it would be commercial nonsense to do so.”

Mr Tate said the drive-thru was not a complicated or unusual proposal, adding it would compliment the petrol station next door.

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The agent said: “This is a drive-thru coffee shop on a brownfield site, it’s different from anything that’s there locally. Not everyone can take a high-skilled job and there’s nothing in the proposals which conflicts with planning policy.

“Such facilities are best built on brownfield sites, and the earlier proposal to build a petrol station on it was granted at appeal and costs were awarded against the council for initially refusing it.”

Committee member Coun Michael Lee said he did not see how the drive-thru would threaten local shops.

He said: “This would be a place for motorists to have a quick takeaway coffee while on their journeys. In my experience, while travelling I haven’t hunted around for local shops to go to, I’ve looked for somewhere more convenient. I have huge amounts of sympathy with locals and shopkeepers but I can’t really see a specific reason to refuse this.”