Councillors approved the 1,919 sqm Aldi and Wendy's drive-through on Rougham Hill on 5 August, two months after voting to refuse it. Permission still waits on a section 106.
West Suffolk councillors have approved a supermarket and a drive-through restaurant on the old household waste site at Rougham Hill, Bury St Edmunds, two months after the same committee voted that it was minded to refuse them. The Development Control Committee took the decision on 5 August, and the council, which is itself the applicant, says the buildings will be occupied by Aldi and Wendy’s with about 40 jobs each. (West Suffolk Council, 5 August 2026)
The application, reference DC/25/1065/FUL, covers a supermarket of 1,919 square metres gross internal area and a drive-through café and restaurant of 250 square metres, with car parking and associated works, on land north of Rougham Hill. The site was the West Suffolk household waste recycling centre until that service moved to a larger site off Bury Road at Fornham St Martin. (Officer report DEV/WS/26/018, appendix A, paragraphs 1 and 2)
Why it came back to committee
Officers recommended approval when the application first went to the committee on 3 June, after a members’ site visit on 1 June. Councillors instead resolved that they were minded to refuse it, which triggered the council’s decision-making protocol and required a risk assessment report before any decision could be issued. (Report DEV/WS/26/025, paragraphs 1.1 to 1.5)
The sticking point was an environmental standard. Policy LP1 of the West Suffolk Local Plan requires every new non-residential building of 500 square metres or more to reach BREEAM “Excellent”. The Rougham Hill scheme targets “Very Good”, with a projected score of 67.84 per cent. The applicant told officers the project was conceived under the previous local plan, which allowed viability to be taken into account, and that abnormal ground conditions requiring extra piling had already hit the scheme’s viability; reaching “Excellent” now, it said, “would require a restart to the project”. (Report DEV/WS/26/025, paragraphs 3.2 to 3.7)
The council’s own environment and sustainability officer did not accept that, writing on 13 July that four of the energy credits at issue “could have been achieved if they were targeted from the beginning of the design stages” and that the objection should stand. The same officer set out what the scheme does deliver: two rooftop solar arrays and two solar canopies, rapid electric vehicle charging on a busy stretch of the A14, and rainwater harvesting, described as “rarely seen in developments of this scale” in an area of serious water stress. (Report DEV/WS/26/025, paragraphs 4.1 to 4.5)
Officers’ advice to members was blunt about the risk of refusing. A refusal reason based on the BREEAM shortfall would, they said, “be difficult to substantiate on an appeal”, and poorly evidenced reasons could leave the council facing an award of costs. They also warned that if members took account of matters that are not material, listing “who the applicant is, reputational risk, costs implications”, the decision “could be legally flawed”. (Report DEV/WS/26/025, paragraphs 7.2 and 7.3)
What the objections said
Bury St Edmunds Town Council amended its position to refusal on 21 May, citing what it called well-founded objections from residents about traffic. Thirty-five representations came in from local residents, thirty-two of them objecting, raising congestion, cumulative impact alongside nearby housing growth, emergency vehicle access, late-night noise and litter, and the view that a drive-through generates more traffic than the transport work allowed for. Councillor Richard Rout, described in the report as the member for an adjacent ward, also objected, on traffic and the transport evidence. (Officer report, appendix A, paragraphs 27 to 31)
Two businesses objected as well. Waitrose questioned the retail impact assessment in August 2025, and the housebuilder Denbury Homes argued in May 2026 that the scheme would undermine the local centre planned at the allocated Local Plan site AP6. The council commissioned Lambert Smith Hampton to review the retail figures. Its recalculation, using higher Aldi sales densities than the applicant’s consultants, put the effect on Bury St Edmunds town centre at 1.8 per cent of convenience turnover, 0.2 per cent of comparison turnover and 0.6 per cent overall, which it judged low and tolerable against a town centre vacancy rate of 8.4 per cent. The drive-through is expected to turn over around £2m and to compete mainly with other roadside operators. (Officer report, appendix A, paragraphs 29, 30, 78 and 79)
On traffic, the transport assessment put the development at roughly 123 two-way vehicle movements in the morning peak hour and 229 in the evening peak, tested against a 2031 scenario that assumes the Abbots Vale housing scheme is built out. Suffolk County Council as highway authority, National Highways and the county’s rights of way team all raised no objection. Access was redesigned during the application so that at least 19 metres separates Rougham Hill from the drive-through turning, to keep queueing traffic off the road. (Officer report, appendix A, paragraphs 144 to 147)
What was actually approved
The scheme provides 165 car parking spaces, including 7 parent and child bays and 8 disabled bays, plus 17 electric vehicle charging spaces of which 8 are fast chargers, 8 motorcycle spaces and 36 cycle parking spaces. Condition 23 requires at least 5 per cent of spaces to have working chargers on opening, rising to 10 per cent within four years and 20 per cent within eight. Condition 11 requires a new three metre wide foot and cycleway in the verge on the southern side of Rougham Hill, between the existing shared use path and Bridleway 39, built to base course before the units are first occupied. Suffolk County Council rejected the applicant’s proposal to give it bridleway status, so it will be adopted highway built under a section 278 agreement. (Officer report, appendix A, paragraphs 148 and 159; report DEV/WS/26/025, conditions 11 and 23)
Opening hours are capped by condition. The shop may trade from 07:00 to 22:00 Monday to Saturday and 10:00 to 16:00 on Sundays, bank holidays and public holidays. The drive-through may trade from 07:00 to 22:00 every day, bank holidays included. Construction work is restricted to 08:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday and 08:00 to 13:00 on Saturdays, with none at all on Sundays or bank holidays. (Report DEV/WS/26/025, conditions 8, 31 and 32)
Three payments are secured through a section 106 agreement: £7,475.71 to West Suffolk Council for monitoring biodiversity net gain, £15,000 to Suffolk County Council for parking restrictions, and £6,000 for travel plan monitoring, paid as £1,200 a year for five years. The scheme must deliver at least 10 per cent biodiversity net gain. (Report DEV/WS/26/025, paragraph 10.2)
What it means for you
Nothing is being built yet. The committee resolved to approve, but the recommendation was for permission to be granted only once the section 106 agreement is signed, and the council’s planning register still listed DC/25/1065/FUL as “Pending Decision” when we checked it on 15 August. The formal decision notice, with the full list of conditions, follows the legal agreement. (West Suffolk planning register, DC/25/1065/FUL)
Once permission is issued, work has to start within three years, the standard time limit set by condition 1. No opening date has been published for either unit, and the council said it would share timescales as the project progresses.
If you live on or near Rougham Hill, the conditions are the thing to keep. Trading hours, delivery and waste collection hours, construction hours, lighting and noise are all controlled by condition rather than by promise, and breaches are enforced by the council’s planning team.
If you want to read the papers yourself, the risk assessment report and the full June officer report with every condition are on the committee agenda for 5 August, and the application file with all plans and public comments sits on the planning register.
We track decisions like this one on our Bury St Edmunds planning news page, and current lane closures and diversions are on our roadworks and travel page.
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