SUPERMARKET giant Lidl has been given the green light for plans to demolish and replace their Evesham store, despite concerns raised about access to the site.
Wychavon planning chiefs gave the thumbs up to the plans at a meeting last Thursday (November 17) which will see the current Broadway Road store as well as the former St Richards’ Hospice building flattened to make way for their state-of-the-art 1,424m2 store.
The new store will provide 122 free car parking spaces, a bakery section and customer toilets and self-checkouts and create up to 40 new jobs.
However, despite being voted through, councillors at the meeting raised concerns about the access to the junction to the new store.
Coun Keith Wright called for the access to the site to be altered as vehicles are already ‘struggling dramatically’ to turn right into the car park.
“At the moment what we find on the existing site is traffic that comes up Port Street, which is trying to turn right into the site, is struggling dramatically because they’re not let across by traffic coming down from Broadway Road off the roundabout,” Coun Wright said.
“Is there anyway that highways could rejig it, whereby traffic coming up goes round the roundabout and then turns left to get into the site.”
In response, Highways Officer Gareth Jones said it is ‘difficult’ to see how that would work.
“It would be extremely difficult to have vehicles travelling up Port Street not to turn right and go round the roundabout,” he said.
“I don’t see how you could achieve that.
“I discussed a yellow box being there, but as I understand, as it’s not a traffic signal junction, you can’t put a yellow box- that’s what traffic management has told me.”
Miles Drew, chartered town planner for Lidl, said: “In terms of highways matters, Lidl is pleased that the local highway authority offers no objections to this application.
“Lidl has worked with the highway authority during the course of the application, making amends to the scheme, particularly in relation to the proposed car park.”
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