Bid for Costa in Beccles' Morrisons dismissed at appeal

A three-year long planning battle has come to an end with supermarket giant Morrisons losing in its bid to build a Costa in its store on the Norfolk and Suffolk border.

The scheme, which would have been built in Beccles’ Morrisons car park on George Westwood Way was first unveiled in 2021 and rejected by the Broads Authority a year later.  

The company then took the fight to the government’s Planning Inspectorate, which can overturn decisions where it thinks authorities have gone against planning law.  

Beccles Morrisons off the A146 and George Westwood Way (Image: Google)

But inspectors have now sided with the Broads Authority, agreeing that the plans could damage protected trees. 

They said the plants help separate the built-up area of the town from undeveloped areas of the Waveney landscape character area which “markedly changes to that of upper river valley marshland”. 

In a report, officials said: “The proposed building would be a distinct addition to the site, set away from the existing built form.  

“It would be of a reasonable scale and mass which would be added to by the associated external works and fixtures associated with the drive-through.  

“The introduction of a building into this location would extend the built form closer to the countryside.  

“It would undermine the distinctive characteristics of the site with respect to the transition between the urban environment and the surrounding rural landscape of the Broads.” 

The company had argued that the scheme was driven by a desire to rejuvenate underused areas of the car park and provide economic benefits through employment during construction and operation. 

But the inspector said this did “not provide an overriding justification that would outweigh the potential for harm to the protected trees” and they did not see any evidence that “there is a lack of safe and welcoming facilities within Beccles”.