Police have warned they “cannot offer any guarantee” that a proposed retail park on the outskirts of Helston would not see issues with anti-social behaviour crime and disorder.

At the same time, objections have been raised by a company providing an emergency equipment service to nearby RNAS Culdrose.

Both were responding in the past month to an ongoing consultation over the proposal by Parsonage Developments Ltd to develop a 2.7 hectare greenfield site at Hospital Cross, between the Sainsbury’s supermarket and Flambards Theme Park, to include an Aldi, McDonald's and Costa, with drive-thrus for the latter two. A previous plan to also include The Range was withdrawn last year.

The plans were first submitted in July 2021 and have gone through various amendments, including consultation beginning again following the removal of The Range, but are still yet to go before Cornwall Council for a decision.

Almost 300 members of the public have written to Cornwall Council with their views so far – 202 against it and 93 in support.

Falmouth Packet: The site plan now, with The Range removed The site plan now, with The Range removed (Image: Pegasus / Cornwall Council)

As part of the process, organisations and authorities would be affected by the development are also consulted – including Devon and Cornwall Police.

The architectural liaison officer for the force initially wrote in September 2021 with a number of concerns, including from the inspector for the area at the time who “hoped it would be ensured that the drive throughs would be able to cope sufficiently with traffic when busy, so as to avoid creating any traffic congestion”.

He also said at that time: “The fast food outlets are shown as being open till midnight. Based on police experience with similar schemes elsewhere, I am concerned that the car park may suffer with issues of anti-social behaviour, noise and possibly crime.

“I would ask that lockable barriers or gates are installed at the car park entrance.

“Additionally there should also be measures considered to discourage any 'racing' around the car park by vehicles.

“Police and partners have in the past faced real difficulty in addressing similar problems elsewhere.”

He also encouraged a side-wide CCTV system.

On December 23 last year the officer wrote again, to welcome the addition of an out-of-hours gate at the Aldi store car park now added into the plans, but stressed his recommendations for CCTV.

He went on to add: “If the measures advised are implemented then hopefully this will reduce the opportunities for crime and disorder but police cannot offer any guarantee of this.”

Also consulted is the Defence Estates Safeguarding Team, over any potential impact to neighbouring RNAS Culdrose naval base.

It said there had been concerns raised around the light that would be produced by the retail complex as a whole, which could affect the performance of night vision devices used by aircrews.

There was also concern about how any metallic advertising structures could cause reflection on equipment used for rapid location of aircraft that are lost or in distress – known as high-frequency direction finders, or HRDF - and therefore block any distress signals. As such it wanted confirmation of the height of any signs.

NATS Holdings (formerly National Air Traffic Services) provides the ‘emergency fixing’ service that relies on the data from this equipment, and went one further by saying it “must raise an objection.”

It added: “Any degradation of the HRDF system is unacceptable to NATS.

“However, NATS will be happy to work with both the MoD and the developer in order to try and identify any potential means of mitigating the proposed impact.”

The developers have also submitted a number of detailed traffic surveys and projections afor the amount of vehicles using the surrounding junctions, with reports for the Spar roundabout, Helston Rugby Club roundabout and Cottage Hospital roundabout.

The application can be found under the planning portal of cornwall.gov.uk reference PA21/07481.