Wyre retail park scrapped in favour of housing 

McDermott Homes’ recently submitted plans for 93 houses at the former Department for Work and Pensions site off Norcross Lane have superseded Kier Property’s proposals for a shopping complex. 

In 2017, Kier won approval to redevelop the 8.4-acre site, located north of Blackpool, into a retail park featuring a supermarket and two drive-thru restaurants. 

Occupiers including M&S, B&M, Taco Bell, and Costa Coffee were lined up to take space at the retail complex. 

However, that consent has now expired, paving the way for McDermott to lodge an application to Wyre Council to revamp the site into homes. 

The housebuilder’s plans feature a mix of two-, three- and four-bedroom properties, nine of which would be affordable. 

McDermott already has consent to build more than 200 homes on the wider 47-acre site that Telereal Trillium won outline consent to redevelop in 2015. Kier bought the site for £3.4m the following year. 

Various buildings previously occupied by government departments have been demolished to make way for the redevelopment of the site.