Lidl lines up Garston site

The expanding supermarket group wants to build a new store on a site formerly occupied by the Co-op on St Mary’s Road in the Liverpool district.

Approval is recommended for the project, which will be considered by the city council’s planning committee next week.

Plan A has submitted the plans on the grocer’s behalf, with designs by Space Architects.

According to the officers’ report, the site has been vacant for a number of years, having at different times been occupied by Co-op, Somerfield and Kwik Save.

Lidl intends to demolish the existing retail unit and associated former pharmacy and introduce its own 19,000 sq ft store, a format in line with most of its developments. The site will have 89 parking spaces.

The new store would be positioned across the back of the site almost in the position of the existing building, and the store entrance would face the customer vehicle and pedestrian entrance from St Mary’s Road.

This would remain in the same location, but narrowed to make it safer to navigate. Demolition of the existing Co-op would open up the rear of the row of existing smaller retail units that front St Mary’s Road, officers said: the rear of these units would be screened, but retain access from the rear and be provided with a shared refuse area.

Lidl is now Europe’s largest grocery retailer. In the UK it has 800 stores, 13 regional distribution centres and employs 25,000 people.

Last month, the business withdrew plans for another Liverpool store, at the former Abbey cinema site in Wavertree, demolition plans having been scuppered by the site’s being listed in April by Historic England.

In recent months Lidl has secured consents in Altrincham and Bolton’s Bromley Cross, has been lined up for a major development in New Brighton and started work in Bromborough, as well as advaning two sites in Salford.