9/2/2010 Planning approval for industrial units at Mosborough.

Planning application approval for the development of a site with light industrial units and new bridge access at Mosborough for William Cook Estates Ltd.

The location of William Cook Estate´s land at Holbrook is well placed for the proposed development. The visual prominence of the site itself demands that the buildings considered should ensure that it adds a degree of quality and interest to the landscape.

The proposed scheme includes a new access on to the site from Holbrook Avenue to the north of the site, which will require the erection of a new bridge to span over the existing public footpath and small stream, ‘Short Brook´, on the northern boundary of the site gaining a much more prominent entry that will make the development more commercially viable and will also have the advantage of avoiding the creation of additional traffic on Station Road.

The approval of our Planning application follows a number of pre-application discussions over the last two years involving many parties and covering a range of matters including design and layout, use, ecology and highways. The Sheffield City Council Ecology Department contributed with the provision of a brief for the Ecology Survey and useful comments on the proposals.

The site is in the area of Holbrook/ Mosborough and is located on the south eastern fringe of Sheffield, very close to the boundary with North East Derbyshire. It has close access to the M1 from either junction 30 from the south, or junction 31 from the north. The location is of a similar distance to Chesterfield, Worksop and Rotherham as it is to Sheffield City Centre.

The site also has good public transport links to Sheffield city centre mainly due to the Supertram terminus immediately adjacent to the site. The journey time from the Cathedral city centre tram stop to the Halfway tram stop is 34 minutes. There are also numerous bus routes that serve the site.

The smaller offices proposed around the edge of the site provide a transition in scale from other smaller scale type buildings in the area, to the larger industrial hi-tech units in the centre of the site. The offices can also take advantage of the views into the adjacent ‘Area of Natural History Interest´.

The scale of the proposed building types is to be two-storey offices and hi-tech units, which are equivalent to two storeys in height, but are built as a shell with the option for the occupiers to use them as a double height space or insert a mezzanine.

It is intended that the choice of external materials will be sustainable wherever possible, such as timber cladding with various finishes. Roof slopes are intended to incorporate photovoltaic collectors where the orientation of the building lends itself to their use and ground source heat pumps could also be considered.

The two hedges crossing the site are to be kept intact as much as possible. Where the line of the hedge is broken by road access small animal tunnels are to be inserted under the road to allow small animals to safely reach the brook. The steep banks around the edge of the site are to be left in a natural state especially on the northern boundary as the land reaches Short Brook. With the retention of the existing hedges and natural features around the boundary of the site it is intended that new landscaping proposals within the site will complement these features.