ASDA believe that within 300m is 'edge of centre' and that Hibbert Lane meets this criteria (see the other thread and the FOI links started by Neil Corrie). I have some sympathy with such a designation.
SMBC beg to differ.
This will be a key battleground in any planning debate / appeal.
Belly, you know about planning and presumably you know about local government.
So here's a question if you would be so kind to consider. I accept what you say about "edge of centre" battleground. I also belive that traffic management will be just as big an issue. However forget the planning pedantics for a minute. If the politicians (despite what some of them have said in public) actually want the Asda/CAMSFC scheme, even if planners have right on their side, will they be strong enough to resist the the political pressure ?
Members ultimately have the final say. The planners are simply 'advisors'.
I've worked on plenty of schemes where we have been 100% correct in planning and it's been 'bounced' by members on little more than a whim, completely against Council Planners advice. But in such cases, the project would then typicaly be taken to appeal by the applicant and the Council would almost certainly lose - in extreme cases, if the Council members really had no planning case at all in refusing an application, the applicant would gets their costs back as well (paid for by the Council)!
A costs award won't happen in this case, as the planning case is quite finely balanced, but given the original protestations by the members prior to the application going in, it would appear a refusal and an appeal are almost inevitable. The result of the appeal, well who knows?