Co-op lodges plans for Rainhill store
The retailer wants to build a 4,200 sq ft convenience store, 26 car parking spaces, and related landscaping and other infrastructure on the site of the former Cranford Residential Home on Warrington Road.
Central England Co-op, one of several retail co-operatives trading under the Co-op banner but independent from the main group, was formed from a merger of Midlands and Anglia Co-operatives and has 400 trading outlets including supermarkets, funeral care, and florists.
The organisation has submitted a planning application to St Helens Council detailing its proposals for the currently vacant site it owns on land and a passageway between 637-639 Warrington Road in Rainhill.
The proposed development will comprise a single-storey retail unit, with glazed shopfront, signage zones, secure service yard and plant enclosure, and a car park, according to the planning application.
The proposed store will provide an in-store bakery but one that is not the full bakery process, “simply an oven-warming process”, the application adds.
The site used to house Cranford Residential Home, which closed following publication of a damning assessment report by the Care Quality Commission in July 2012. The care home closed two years later in 2014. Its existing floor area was similar to that proposed for the store, the planning application states – “so in respect to site massing it would not be any worse than the previous use”.
“The scale of the new build development will not overpower the site,” it adds. “The previous care home on the site was traditional in design, and was predominately white render, with low-level local red brickwork. The new construction will respect the character and appearance of the previous building.”
Altrincham-based Enabl is the planning consultant for the scheme. The project team also includes designer DB3; Rapleys as the retail consultant; ADL for the transport and travel plan; NSL as the noise impact consultant; E3P as the ecology consultant, and RammSanderson Arboriculture as trees consultant.
Local residents have already expressed concern over the proposed store’s close proximity to Rainhill High School and anticipated increase in traffic.
The site includes vacant land and a passageway between 637-639 Warrington Road. Credit: via planning documents
This is not a good idea. Warrington Road in Rainhill is already a busy main road with a large school there. Another Coop would make the traffic even busier.
By Anonymous
This is a terrible idea. Why do we need another CO-OP.The one in the village is enough. The traffic is terrible so parents will use the car park at school times as they do in the village. If they are hoing to build a supermarket at least get a decent one
By Anonymous