Councillors give go-ahead for new Morrisons store at Bishopbriggs

Morrisons were given the go-ahead to replace their existing store, which was built in the 1980s, at East Dunbartonshire Council’s planning board on Tuesday evening.

The company owns more land at the South Crosshill Road site than it currently occupies, and it proposed to develop a bigger store, plus the petrol station. The new store will include  a café, a pharmacy and an ATM while the petrol station will have six pumps and two jet wash bays as well as shop space.

In a planning statement submitted alongside the application, Morrisons said:  “Morrisons has operated a store in this location since it was acquired from Safeway in 2003. Morrisons has had long term ambitions for a better store in this location to replace their existing store and compromised split level car park. The provision of a petrol filling station is a critical component of the Morrisons business.”

During the meeting councillors showed support for the application but some expressed concerns over plans to give some land back to the council after developing new car parks. These pieces of land are behind the library and next to the evangelical church.

Some councillors were concerned  that this transfer meant the existing Crosshill House, which was formerly used by the NHS but has been empty since at least 2003,  was guaranteed to be demolished without any consideration towards retaining this building, or if this was the best use of the land considering other large-scale planning applications in the area.

SNP group leader Gordan Low  negotiated an amendment which would only have seen the land at the church transferred to the council immediately. This was outvoted by seven votes to ten, with the committee instead backing the original recommendation which was to grant planning permission subject to various conditions.