Planning application submitted for swimming pool in Wakefield village

An earlier application to amend the conditions of the layout of the site in Kirkhamgate was withdrawn earlier this year.

The current application is for a change of use from mixed residential, swimming pool and beauty salon to mixed residential and swimming pool and alterations to parking layout and marking out of bays.

Permission was previously granted for the property, on Batley Road, to operate as a pool and beauty salon in 2021.

Wakefield Council approved the scheme despite objections over traffic safety and congestion concerns caused by visitors to the property on Batley Road.

Planning officers gave the scheme the go-ahead that December, with a condition that not more than ten visitors at a time used the pool.

At the time of the initial application some neighbours objected to the plans.

One said: “We, or any visitors, are unable to park outside our property when the lessons are on and this is causing issues when my parents come to visit.

"When returning home from work it is extremely difficult to pull a little way past our driveway to reverse down it, we prefer to drive out of our property rather than reversing out onto a busy main road as we think this is a much safer thing to so but the parked vehicles at either side of the driveway make it impossible to see clearly and therefore unsafe to do so.”

In the most recent application, only one objection has been submitted.

It said: “Parking on Batley Road is and always has been problematic as witnessed outside Flanshaw Junior and Infants School whereby parking restriction cones have recently had to be deployed.

"Why would Wakefield planning/highways think that approving a swimming school in Kirkhamgate would be any different?

"There is no doubting that pavement parking on main roads causes serious safety issues with visibility so why isn't this recognised and more fully appropriate action taken in any planning assessment to prevent potential accidents or fatalities?”

The application from earlier this to vary the parking conditions, which was since withdrawn, said that only the pool and not the beauty salon remained in operation.