Green light for manufacturing warehouse plans

Earlier this year, applicants Buccleuch Property and Argon Properties applied to develop a site off Armstrong Road in Armstrong Industrial Estate.

Plans include building a two-storey manufacturing and logistics building with office space alongside associated landscaping, parking and access.

This will include 14,585 sq m space with 188 parking spaces, six accessible spaces and four electric vehicle charging stations.

The site was the former location of home improvement store Dickens before B&Q moved into the site in 1999.

In following years, the DIY giants won planning permission to build a new store north of the site in Armstrong Industrial Estate with the remaining building later demolished.

Sunderland City Council’s area development control sub-committee nodded through the new plans for the site at Sunderland Civic Centre.

A council report, presented at the meeting, said it would be “unlikely that the proposed development will have any detrimental impact upon any near neighbouring residential properties.”

In future, customers will enter the site from existing stub road or Armstrong Road while commercial vehicles will use Cragside Road.

Applicants added that servicing areas have been located to allow movement of large vehicles away from visitor and staff parking areas.

Under current condition, no building work can take place on site until an investigation determines whether the land has been contaminated.

Chris Binding , Local Democracy Reporting Service