Current Petitions

I suggest that we follow the latter course and await the outcome of the Competition Commission's inquiry into the subject.Another issue that is niggling at the back of my mind is how the planning authorities monitor residents' concerns once 24-hour supermarkets open. I am thinking about how we as a committee could gather information on that. I suggest that we write to the Government to seek clarification on the monitoring that is carried out once planning permission has been granted, because problems might not automatically come out in the lead-up to the building of a 24-hour supermarket. When we discussed the petition previously, concerns were raised about the on-going operation of 24-hour supermarkets, particularly in residential or built-up areas. We should write to the Government on the issue because it strikes a chord with me and with what the petitioner from whom we heard earlier had to say about planning. We have myriad planning regulations, but we need to be aware of how they are monitored and enforced.

I will extend that point by referring to personal experience. As I said earlier, a supermarket was granted planning permission very close to a residential part of Dundee. The Scottish Office reporter who granted that permission forgot to include any constraints on when activities such as offloading could be carried out, with the result that lorries are offloaded at 2 o'clock in the morning, which plainly should not be happening. The making of an upgraded application for 24-hour operation has enabled us to seek the constraints that should have been imposed when the original application for limited-hours opening was granted. It seems to me that the Government should consider supervening legislation, whereby the 24-hour operation of a business—of which a supermarket is just one example—in a residential area would be subject to limits to which there were no exceptions. Just as flights out of airports are not allowed between 11 o'clock in the evening and 7 o'clock in the morning—or whatever the relevant hours are—perhaps there should be some general legislation that says that certain activities, such as offloading lorries or running compressors, cannot be done in residential areas at particular times. We could write to the Government to ask whether such a measure is planned; the subtext would be that if there is no such plan, there should be.