I have an update on the nursery planned for the area between the apartments in the village centre and Friend Way. Even if you don’t have a need for a nursery yourself, this post may still be of interest given the land is in a prominent location and is a bit of an eye-sore in its current state.
The Midcounties Co-operative own the freehold to the land and in light of the fact that the planning permission for the nursery expires in January, I got in touch to ask about their plans. This culminated in a conversation on Friday, when a Co-op representative told me that there will be some ‘work’ undertaken on site to ensure they don’t default on the planning consent and more concrete plans will be outlined in February. I was also told the Co-op remains committed to the delivery of a nursery at Graven Hill and will undertake some marketing to test demand in the New Year.
It seems that the three years since the planning consent was granted has flown by and obviously it is disappointing that there has been no movement in all this time. Perhaps unsurprisingly though, I was told that delivery has been delayed until there are more residents at Graven Hill, with a view to synchronise with the convenience store they are hoping to provide. As we know, it has taken a while to build out the site and whilst I wasn’t able to establish what their desired number of occupations is, there are considerably more residents now than when the planning consent was given. I also understand that although there has been no progress this year on Block A, which will contain the additional retail units, there should be next year. More recently, Midcounties Co-operative have been distracted by a planned merger with Central Co-op. Once complete, focus is expected to return to projects such as this one, and this helps explain the February timeframe for further news.
Hopefully, there will be a clearer picture and more positive news to communicate soon.
Graven Hill Residents' Association 