Town councillors have objected to plans that could see Kenilworth's Waitrose permenantly extend the hours it is allowed to accept deliveries.

The Bertie Road supermarket has applied to take deliveries and load home delivery vans between 6am and 11pm seven days a week.

The store has been using these times during the pandemic but wishes to make the arrangement permanent.

Normally Waitrose is only allowed to take deliveries between 7am and 11pm Monday to Saturday and between 8am and 9pm on Sundays.

However, at last Thursday's Kenilworth Town Council planning committee meeting members said the application had not taken into account the wider impact on the town.

"The original condition was justified on the basis that it was there to protect the amenity to the local area. I don't see that that position has changed in the intervening time," said Cllr Andrew Milton.

"The applicant does refer to the fact that they have been operating like this under emergency powers during the pandemic and highlights the absence of complaint but that shouldn't necessarily indicate consent or approval.

"It may just be that residents are tolerating this because of the situation and are being very considerate.

"The other thing that I feel uncomfortable with is that no assessment has been made about the impact of noise beyond the actual site itself.

"Effectively this could mean delivery lorries coming in earlier to town and more traffic in the town at early hours or late hours and at weekend."

Waitrose has submitted a 'management plan' detailing how it will keep noise levels down.

The plan includes turning off reversing alarms and making sure the drivers follow a set route to the shop.

But Cllr Rob Barry said: "How are they actually going to police it?

"Are they going to police truck drivers not putting on their reversing sounds?"

Whilst other councillors said that objections to the application state that Waitrose has already failed to meet the conditions of its previous planning permission.

"The interesting thing is that the objections are mainly from Bertie Road," added Cllr John Dearing.

"What was concerning was that they say Bertie Road is used for Waitrose's HGV's which is really odd because if that is true it is against all the existing agreements."

Whilst Cllr Kate Dickson added: "We have had complaints with descriptions of some very interesting descriptions of manoeuvring of HGV's around what is a 90 degree turn with two junctions coming off it.

"It is a frequent occurrence."

The planning committee objected to the plans unanimously.