Plans to bring a Waitrose supermarket, a new park and ride development and a Cornish Food Hall selling local produce to Truro have take a step forward.

Cornwall Council’s cabinet members have voted unanimously to allow a joint planning application to be submitted.

Also included in the Truro Eastern District Centre development would be a household waste recycling centre and almost 100 homes, 35 per cent of them being affordable housing.

The centre would be based on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, between the A39 Newquay Road and the A390 Union Hill on the eastern side of Truro, where the roads from St Austell and Newquay approach the city.

Work will now continue between Cornwall Council and its partners, to prepare the planning application, which will then have to go through the usual planning process.

Graeme Hicks, cabinet member for transportation and highways, told the meeting at New County Hall that the park and ride service would provide easy access into the city centre, as a well as a regular service through the city to the railway station, County Hall, the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro College and Threemilestone.

He said: “This is an excellent project that will remove vehicles from the highway network during peak hours and throughout the day.”

Mr Hicks added that the new Eastern centre would also fulfil the need for affordable housing and bring locally produced food shopping to Truro.

The proposed Household Waste Recycling Centre would remove the need for a 16-mile round trip to United Mines for Truro residents and bring the travel time to the nearest centre for residents from the Roseland Peninsula to under 30 minutes, helping to increase recycling in the area.

Mike Eathorne-Gibbons, member for Ladock, St Clement and St Erme, also welcomed the project and told cabinet: “This is a very good scheme that will benefit a lot of local people.”

Cabinet members heard that the park and ride on the western side of the city started running in August 2008 and had recently carried its one millionth passenger, removing half a million cars from the A390 over that period.

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