IKEA Coming to Southampton

After a marathon planning meeting last night, city councillors finally gave approval for Swedish furniture giant, IKEA to build a superstore in Southampton.

The store will be built on the former Pirelli site in West Quay Road and will be a huge boost to the city economy creating 500 jobs.

This is fantastic news for Southampton and is one of a number of major city developments which will boost the city. Cruise giant Carnival are also to have their head office located in the area, on the West Quay Phase 3 site and this secures a further 900 jobs in Southampton. Plans to redevelop Northern Above Bar are also making progress.

The only hurdle in the way for IKEA remains the threat of the government over ruling Southampton's decision. This happened before and the secretary of state blocked a previous move from IKEA to come to the city. I am hopeful that this won't happen again.

Read more about the plans HERE.

Planning Meeting - 6th November

Next Tuesday's planning panel meeting has some very important and controversial applications on the agenda, including the New College Linden Homes development and also IKEA. Click HERE for a full list of applications.

New College

This is a proposal for 200+ flats and commercial units on the old La Santa Union Site.

I have commented on this application previously and objected on a number of grounds.

I am very concerned about this proposed development which once again is flats, flats, flats and very little family housing. This is despite full council recently agreeing to new strict family housing planning policies.

Also I am concerned that only minimal efforts have been made to make the proposed development environmentally sound and sustainable. I would very much like to see any development on the site link into the city's combined heat and power (CHP) station or provide on site CHP and am very disappointed that Linden rejected this idea. Again this is despite the clear direction of the council to expand CHP across the city.

The New College Application will be heard on Tuesday at 3pm at the Civic Centre. Anyone can go along to the meeting.