5.1 The Town's Granby Industrial Estate lies to the south of the 'Village' adjacent to Charlestown and was the site of Chickerell airfield during WW2 and subsequently developed as an industrial estate. At just over 34ha, it is one of the largest employment sites in the Dorset Council area, and is considered to be the key industrial centre in Western Dorset. Although there is little free space remaining (the latest 2016 study identified 1.7ha of available land) there may be further opportunities to intensify development at this site through the redevelopment and upgrading of existing sites for employment uses. The continued employment uses on this estate are fully supported by local residents, as they provide many job opportunities and underpin the reason for accepting the high level of past and planned residential growth in Chickerell. To the east there is a small portion of the Weymouth Golf Course, the northern part of which has potential ecological value as part of the wildlife corridor between Radipole Lake SSSI and the coast.
5.2 Chickerell’s Link Park is an extension to the Granby located off the Chickerell Link Road. All available land on the Link Park Estate has now been developed, primarily for B1, B2 & B8 employment uses. In 2016 a medium sized supermarket was approved as an exception to normal requirement for B-type employment, having regard to the fact that the retail use and complimentary uses would provide an element of employment, and also benefit the local community. Previous attempts to get a supermarket in the area had been thwarted by the sequential test argument that sites should be in the Weymouth Town Centre (even though Morrisons and Sainsbury were allowed large supermarkets further away from Weymouth's Town Centre than many Chickerell sites). As a result, the ALDI food store opened in 2017, was Chickerell's first major supermarket. It is ideally situated between the Village, Charlestown and Lanehouse residential areas. Unfortunately, this supermarket does not possess an in-store bakery, fresh meat counter etc therefore many residents will still elect to travel to supermarkets located to the East of the Chickerell/Weymouth conurbation.
5.3 Both areas are recognised in the Local Plan as key employment sites, and therefore adequately protected from alternative uses through the Local Plan policies.
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