A proposed shop on a busy Hamilton road could cause road chaos, a meeting has heard.
A developer is hoping to convert an after school centre on Argyle Drive into a new store.
But some residents fear customer parking and delivery vans would create traffic jams.
Councillors at South Lanarkshire Council’s planning committee meeting on Tuesday (October 11), have deferred any decision on the proposal, saying a full investigation into the traffic flow was needed.
Councillors also called out the local authority’s Roads Department for not identifying issues and deeming the change of use as acceptable.
Councillor Mary Donnelly (Hamilton West and Earnock), first raised concerns, stating that the street is crammed as it is without extra traffic and footfall.
She proposed to defer the application until a full ground inspection was carried out to confirm whether or not the new development would affect road safety.
She said: “I’m aware roads have agreed to this, but where the change of use to the shop is situated the road is blocked off, the streets are very narrow.
"There’s going to be big lorries coming in for delivery and they’re not going to have anywhere to park; they will actually have to come up on the pavement.
“And for the cars coming to the shop to access the shop, there will be a lack of places for the cars to park. So I’m a bit concerned that that was agreed as okay where it’s right up against the houses and there’s no flexibility there.”
Officials from the council’s Roads Department confirmed that they had looked at the site and found that there was adequate capacity on the street for cars to park outside the shop.
The department also assumed that due to the site being in a residential area, the vast majority of customers would be expected to walk or cycle to the shop.
And due to the shop being relatively small, the Roads Department does not expect large delivery trucks, but instead smaller vans.
Councillor Donnelly added: “It sounds to me that the Roads Department is assuming people will walk to the shop, I’ve been round to the site and I’ve been concerned.
"I think a site visit would have been useful, I have been around and I am a bit worried about this development.”
These issues were echoed by councillor David Watson (East Kilbride West), who said: “I share some of the concerns with councillor Donnelly and to say people will walk, I’m not quite convinced that’s going to be the case.
"I stay in a residential area with a local shop and very few folk actually walk to it. We see cars driving up and down all the time, plus lorries dropping off goods.
“At the moment, it’s okay to say this is a small local shop but what’s to stop it from turning into a national small shop where large lorries deliver? To me, the site doesn’t lend itself to a shop, just looking at the map, and reading some of the objections I would be tended to by second councillor Donnelly’s amendment to defer the application.”
Councillor Davie McLachlan (Hamilton North and East) also shared these worries, he said: “I’m quite astonished at the Roads Department’s assessment of this, it’s not the first time I’ve been astonished by some of the judgements they’ve made.
“I know this road very well, I travel on it several times a week and I’ve never passed it once where there’s not cars parked on the opposite side of the proposed shop.
"There’s people who live there and their cars are parked constantly so you can never pass without waiting for vehicles coming from the other direction.
"So no matter who it is, whoever is going to deliver, they’re going to have a serious problem getting goods into that shop.
“And I don’t accept for a minute that it’s a terrible assumption to make that it’s only going to be small vans, any company that makes deliveries will choose whatever delivery vehicle they have, and it’s not going to be small vans, it’s going to be 7.5 tonne trucks.
"And regardless you’re never going to be able to park a car or a van at that shop to make a delivery, whatever delivery that’s going to be made will have to travel along the pavement because there’s always parked cars opposite.
"I think the Roads Department assessment got this one completely wrong.”
Only five councillors voted for the plans to convert the site into a shop compared to 16 who voted to defer the application to allow a site visit to be carried out.
The site was originally constructed in the early 1980s as a doctors surgery as well as also being used as a bereavement support unit. Most recently, it was used as an after school childcare facility.
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