Who is behind this planning application?

This is a commercial application by Ashcourt Construction. It is not anything to do with Hull City Council or East Riding Council (except ERYC are the planning authority).

What does the planning application propose?

• A bus maintenance depot for East Yorkshire buses (EYMS, now Go Ahead). This will operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and employ approx 345 staff, replacing the current depots at Anlaby Rd and Elloughton. It will handle about 200 buses which will be based at and operated from the site.
• A fuel station and shop.
• Three fast food outlets.
• A 500-Space park and ride car park to be operated by Ashcourt

(click to enlarge image)

What are the objections?

Anyone who needs to use the Dunswell Roundabout should be concerned about the additional traffic this will cause. The access roads are designed as left-turn only which means that to make a right turn, vehicles will need to go all the way round the roundabout. There are 4 access roads crossing the busy footway/cycle path between Kingswood and North Hull.

Local residents are also concerned about noise and air pollution from the buses being moved about the depot, especially the reversing beepers on the buses. A noise fence is proposed but this is only 3m high and we feel will be ineffective. The noise will affect residents over a wide area, not just the adjacent houses. We understand that the beepers should be silenced during night time but people who live close to the current depots tell us that this doesn’t happen.

We are concerned about increasing the flooding risk to nearby houses since this land floods after rainfall in the winter.

The 24 hour floodlighting proposed for the site will be intrusive.

A large green area forming a buffer between Hull and Dunswell will be lost.

Why is nobody else objecting on the ERYC planning website?

Lots of people are objecting but for whatever reason, the council is not putting the comments up on the website yet. They assure me that they have been received and will eventually appear.

Are there any good points?

Not really. The planning application claims many new jobs will be created but most of these are actually EYMS employees who will be moved from their existing sites.

The Park & Ride scheme could potentially be useful but realistically not many people travel into the town centre. The current Park & Ride at Hessle has so few users that it is uneconomical to operate and requires council subsidies. The Park & Ride would arguably be better located at Kingswood to take people from the city to those shops.