Lincoln mosque: Council planners say they are ready for the Boultham Dairy site to be redeveloped into a Lidl, mosque and housing.
City planners are recommending the approval of a planning application that would see the site of the former Boultham Dairy turned into a mosque, a supermarket and a housing development.
As previously reported, the application site is the land formerly occupied by the now-demolished Boultham Dairy, at the junction of Dixon Street and Boultham Park Road.
The development entails a new Lidl supermarket, which would replace the one in St Marks, as well as a mosque on the eastern side with access from Dixon Street.
The planning application was first submitted in June and garnered a mixed set of reactions from residents in the area.
A petition against the proposals had 554 signatories, while a petition in favour of the development had 451 signatures.
The City Council received 109 letters in support of the Boultham Dairy plans and 67 individual letters against the application.
The letters of objection raised issues about potential traffic increases and parking problems in the area, as well as the design of the supermarket building.
However, the Highway Authority concluded that “in relation to traffic capacity and highway safety, the proposed development is acceptable.”
Recent proposals for a mosque on the corner of Church Drive and Boultham Park Road were rejected on the grounds of increased demand for on street parking, in an otherwise quiet residential area.
The plans for the mosque on the former dairy site however include 70 parking spaces, which city planners deemed acceptable in a report:
“The impact from the current application would be contained within the site in terms of car parking provision and any change in activity and movements would affect the existing busy roads around the site and would not have an unacceptable impact on the nearby residential areas.”
Regarding the looks of the new supermarket, the council report explained “the site had very little visual appeal as the Dairy and so a well designed new development would be able to enhance the visual amenity of the area.”
The planners recommended the City of Lincoln Council approves the application at a Planning Committee on October 24.
Lincolnshire’s economy chief said the benefits of Brexit have not yet been realised due to COVID and other issues, as the county faces a major workforce shortage and the UK a “worse than a storm” financial future.
Councillor Colin Davie, the county council’s portfolio holder for Environment and Economy, however said Lincolnshire was “well-placed” to survive the hardships ahead.
“I don’t think there is any time in our history, probably since the 1930s, where so many issues have aligned at once that could fundamentally destabilise the country, let alone the economy.
“However, Lincolnshire has always been more resilient than most parts to economic and political storms, and I think it is still well-placed to come through the period we are about to enter.
“[This] in my view is going to be not just a storm, it’s going to be something so much more fundamental than that. It’s going to make us all question what government is about, what work is about, and who we believe and who we trust.”
“Everyone’s impacted by rising energy costs and political instability in the world, we are facing challenging times and I’ve got no doubt that the autumn and winter period will test all of us politically and as individuals and members of society like we’ve never been tested before.”
Lincolnshire County Councillor Colin Davie. | Image: Daniel Jaines
He said workforce would be the biggest challenge for the nation and Lincolnshire, along with a falling birthrate.
The councillor, who is also a district member for the East Coast, said: “I’ve got businesses in on the coast who can’t recruit staff to work in their restaurants or bars and the owners and managers are doing the work themselves.
“They can’t do it forever and if they can’t get staff they’ll end up closing – that’s what we’re gonna see in the autumn if we’re not careful.”
He said there needed to be a step-change in the way workforces were utilised and greater investment in automation.
However, Councillor Davie warned against people using Brexit as a “blame mechanism”.
A recent planning application for 60-bed accommodation Staples Brothers farm in Sibsey saw the owners blame the EU-departure for making it increasingly difficult to find seasonal workers.
“Brexit has made sourcing appropriate labour more difficult, and we’ve never been able to source sufficient labour from those living in the UK,” they said in the planning form.
However, Councillor Davie argued the bigger challenge was the weaker exchange rate for the pound, meaning that it was nearly on par with what the migrant workers could earn in their own countries.
He added that the migrant’s own countries were facing similar labour shortages.
“So employing foreign labour is more expensive, and they don’t want to come because they can work in their own country.
“Why would you want to come to the UK when you can virtually earn the same money in terms of buying power at home and not leave your families behind.”
He added: “The benefits of Brexit have not been realised yet because we’ve been too busy dealing with COVID.
“There are measures the government can take if they want to drive the Brexit dividend forward, and that’s what they should do.”
He did, however, accept that “the bureaucratic process of bringing workers here – the process they have to go through – needs sorting out”.
“That is an issue, but the biggest challenge now is workforce availability. We’re now competing for workforce like we never used to.”
Asked if he felt Brexit was putting workers off due to fears over how they were viewed or treated as non-English, he said: “No, they’re not at all.”
“They can work at home because they’ve got the same problems we’ve got – an ageing population, less young people available – so they’re having to hold on to their own people by paying them more money.”
He said for Brexit to move forward, there needed to be a “clearing of the decks”. With government ministers taking control from civil service advisors and doing “what the right thing is for our country”.
He said this meant more local, fairer funding and control over service provision.
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