Double Dealership Delight for Listers!

Tyler Parkes has just obtained planning permission for two prestigious car dealerships, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche on the outskirts of Hull.

For some time lead consultant Gareth Jones has been assisting client The Listers Group Ltd. in their search to find a suitable new site to which to re-locate their Mercedes-Benz dealership from existing premises in Hessle, to the west of the City.

At the same time Listers have also been looking for a new site to accommodate a Porsche dealership. Porsche had a dealership in Hull until the 2008 recession and there was a strong desire to re-establish Porsche in the area.

In partnership with the Wykeland Group Ltd., a leading Hull based property development company who own a substantial commercial property portfolio in the north, two suitable locations were identified within their portfolio of local business sites, one in Melton for Mercedes, and the other, for Porsche, at Bridgehead, Hessle. The high-quality design of both schemes, and the identity of the occupiers was a major factor in this process.

Both sites have outline planning permissions for B1/B2 & B8 ‘Employment development’, but since a car dealership is not classed as ‘employment’ for the purposes of the regulations the Listers proposals were not authorised under those consents and fresh planning applications were required. Some Planning Authorities accept that dealerships are appropriate to such sites, whilst other do not.

Accordingly, pre-application meetings were held with senior Officers at the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, to gauge their approach, and they expressed their full support in principle for these prestigious developments. This process established the extensive range of plans, reports and documents which would be needed to support the applications.

There followed a long period of gestation whilst all the necessary documentation was prepared and compiled, and planning applications by Listers and Wykeland as joint applicants were submitted concurrently in November 2018. Tyler Parkes provided robust Planning Support Statements to address the business and employment credentials of each proposal.

The time and hard work put in at the pre-application stage meant that both applications required relatively little further work from Tyler Parkes during the determination period, other than providing some additional highway information at the request of Highways England and the procurement of a Heritage Assessment for the Porsche scheme, to demonstrate that the development would not harm the setting of the nearby Humber Bridge, a Grade 1 Listed Building.

As the local Town Council had objected to the proposal on policy grounds, the Porsche application was reported to the Council’s Planning Committee for decision on 14th February, with an Officer recommendation for approval, which Members endorsed.

The Mercedes application was also approved, under officers’ ‘delegated powers’. Both were determined within the Council’s statutory 13-week period for major development.

In consultation with the planners, who had been very positive and helpful throughout, pre-commencement conditions have been kept to a minimum.

Listers intend to commence work on the Porsche site in April, so very soon passing motorists will see an exciting, contemporary building emerging on this site.