Officers back self-storage in part of the empty Mintsfeet Road garage, against objections from the council's own highways and flood teams. Decision Thursday.
Part of the empty Arnold Clark garage on Mintsfeet Road in Kendal would become self-storage units and a light industrial unit under plans that go before councillors on Thursday 10 September.
Planning officers have recommended approval. The council’s own highway authority and its own flood authority have both told them not to.
That disagreement is the only reason the application is being decided in public. The officer’s report gives the reason for a committee-level decision as “Highways/LLFA objection contrary to Officer recommendation”. Everything else about the scheme is routine enough to have been signed off by an officer alone.
What is proposed
Application 2026/1214/FPA covers the rear part of the former Arnold Clark Vauxhall garage at Mintsfeet Road, LA9 6NN. The applicant is T Dodgson and the case officer is Sonja Swift.
The proposal is a change of use from car workshop to a mix of storage and distribution (Use Class B8) and general industrial (Use Class B2), with external alterations. The report describes those alterations as:
- replacing the roof and wall cladding with anthracite grey cladding, with six transparent roof panels on the north elevation
- black fascia panels, and grey roller shutter doors and window frames
- removing two roller shutter doors, two access doors and a window on the south elevation, and adding a glazed entrance, an access door and a roller shutter door
- removing three door openings on the east elevation and inserting one central door
- removing windows and a door on the north elevation and inserting a personnel door
The application site is 552 square metres. The front of the building, 480 square metres with parking for 25 cars, is not part of the application and stays as it is.
This is the second bite at the site. The whole building already has permission, granted on 21 May 2026 under 2025/2324/FPA, for a mix of offices, general industrial and storage across 33 shared parking spaces.
Why highways objected
The Local Highway Authority responded twice, on 27 July and again on 17 August, and recommended refusal both times. Its case is that the parking has not been properly assessed.
The report sets out what the Cumbria Development Design Guide asks for. General industry in the rear unit would need 11 spaces. Storage would need 5.5 spaces, plus a disabled space and a service space. The submitted plan shows eight, including one disabled space and a car and motorcycle bay.
Officers accept the shortfall. Their reasoning is that:
- the guide sets no standard at all for the retained car sales use
- 25 spaces at the front is adequate given the overall size of the site
- a condition requiring the spaces to be marked out and kept for parking deals with the rest
One highways request has quietly gone away. The authority had asked for a safe and attractive route alongside Public Footpath 536017, which runs down the eastern boundary of the site. Highways has since confirmed by email that the council’s active travel project has been cut back and the footpath improvements taken out of it. The condition is not being carried through.
Why the flood authority objected
The site sits in Flood Zone 3, the highest-risk category, on the flat ground north of Kendal town centre.
A flood risk assessment has been submitted, by R G Parkins, reference K-2026-0044.FRA/001. The Lead Local Flood Authority says it does not do enough: it “does not consider whether there are any reasonable opportunities for the development to provide improved resilience and the benefits of sustainable drainage”.
The flood authority also points out that this has happened before. Its August response records that the previous application on the same building “was approved against a LLFA recommendation that further information was still required, which remains our recommendation”.
The measures the assessment does propose are:
- low-permeability materials
- air vent flood dams and flood doors
- signing up to the Environment Agency flood warning service
- a flood plan for staff and visitors
Officers say those measures are enough for an existing building, and recommend a condition requiring them, with no additional sustainable drainage.
The hours question
One neighbour, from a house behind the site, wrote in. They asked for no work at night and no security lighting shining into bedrooms.
The report notes that the existing car dealership has never had any restriction on its hours at all. The recommended conditions would impose some for the first time:
- the approved uses restricted to 7am to 9.30pm every day
- the refuse and recycling area, which sits nearest the houses, restricted to 8am to 8pm
- any new external lighting to be approved by the council first
There is a loose end in the paperwork. The report says the earlier permission limited hours to 7am to 9pm, and notes an error involving the delegated report stating 9.30pm. The condition now recommended is the later of the two.
Kendal Town Council raised no objection.
What it means for you
If you live on the estate behind Mintsfeet Road, the practical change is that hours would be written down. A car workshop that could legally have operated at any hour would be replaced, in that part of the building, by uses capped at 9.30pm and a bin area capped at 8pm.
If you use the footpath along the eastern edge of the site, nothing is coming. The improvements the highway authority asked for have been dropped from the council’s active travel programme, not deferred within this application.
The meeting is at 10am on Thursday 10 September in the District Council Chamber at Kendal Town Hall, Lowther Street, LA9 4DQ. It is open to the public. The deadline to apply to speak has passed: the agenda requires applications “no later than 0:01am (one minute past midnight) three working days before the date of the meeting”.
Four other applications are on the same agenda, and only one is anywhere near Kendal:
- Passing Winds, Sedgwick, a few miles south of Kendal: extensions and a reconfigured elevation
- 9 Lowther Gardens, Grange-over-Sands: removing planting and a stone wall for a larger customer car park
- Outland, Cark Road, Cartmel: a detached garage, part retrospective
- Middle Birkby Farm, Cark-in-Cartmel: demolishing an agricultural building for one self-build house
Decisions on all of them, and the full reports, are in the agenda for the meeting.
More on how planning works here, and what is currently in the system, is on our Kendal planning news page. Parking charges and permits across the town are on our parking in Kendal page, and current closures are on Kendal roadworks and travel.
Sources
- Westmorland and Furness Council, officer’s report on application 2026/1214/FPA, South Lakeland Local Area Planning Committee, 10 September 2026
- Westmorland and Furness Council, agenda for South Lakeland Local Area Planning Committee, 10 September 2026
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