Highland Council transport planning officers object to Motor Fuels Group’s plans for a coffee shop at Morrisons supermarket in Inverness’s Millburn Road, and tell the company to drop the drive-thru if they want the objection lifted

A new drive-thru coffee shop in Inverness city centre may have hit a stumbling block before it has even been built after transport officers objected to the plans in their current form.

The applicant, Motor Fuels Group, is seeking to build a new coffee-shop drive-thru on top of some of the parking bays at Morrisons in Millburn Road.

The bays are deemed surplus to requirements by the supermarket giant, as it already has more than enough bays to cater to its customers.

If approved, the development would be located in a north-eastern corner of the car park - the section furthest away from the store’s entrance doorway, and next to the site’s road junction with Millburn Road.

Motor Fuels Group’s agents, William Cox Architects, claim the new eatery would “revitalise” the supermarket car park, offer more choice to existing customers and generate new jobs.

But Highland Council’s transport planning team say the eatery’s drive-thru element cannot be justified amid wider actions to tackle climate change - especially as it will encourage more people to drive into the drive-thru element instead of popping into the cafe on foot while shopping at the supermarket.

They argue that a coffee shop or café without a drive-thru would be just as viable, as the applicant has already claimed that a “significant” proportion of its expected customers will be shopping at Morrisons anyway - and will only need good paths to pop from the retailer to grab food to go.

And the officers have asked that the drive-thru element be dropped from the wider coffee shop proposal, to which they otherwise have no objection.

In their objection letter, the transport planning officers said: “Whilst we have no objection to the principle of a coffee shop and take-away at this location, we object to the proposed drive-thru facility that is associated with the development.

“Given the current declared climate emergency, national and local planning, transport and environmental policies are committed to long-term greenhouse gas emission reductions and a transition towards a low carbon society.

“This includes the Scottish Government’s commitment to a 20 per cent reduction in car kilometres by 2030, as set out in the updated 2020 Climate Change Plan. A drive-thru facility is, by its very nature, a car-based development and can only go against that national commitment.

“Also, if as the submission is suggesting there is a belief that a significant proportion of users of this new facility will be linked trips associated with the existing superstore, the drive-thru will again be surplus to requirements.

“Visitors to the superstore need to park to access the store. Therefore, if they are already parked within the car park, they should also be able to walk or wheel through that car park to access the coffee shop. It should be possible to easily cater for this through good quality active travel connections through the car park linking to both this new facility and the existing superstore.”

The transport officers have also recommended that conditions be attached to turn some of the nearby car parking spaces into “at least two disabled driver spaces and two parent & child spaces” as existing bays designated for those purposes are located a good distance away from the coffee shop building.

If the full application is approved without any modifications then the coffee shop drive-thru would have an external area of 217 sq m and 169 sq m of internal floor space as well as an external seating area and an adjoining utility yard of 26 sq m.

Seven new ultra-rapid vehicle charges would also be installed on the site, as well as two cycle stands.

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