Green light for village Aldi plans
TARLETON will get its first supermarket after plans for a new Aldi store were approved. West Lancashire Borough Council’s planning committee supported an application which will see the discount retailer build its own store off Liverpool Road in Tarleton.
The plan will see the historic Bay Leaf restaurant, by Tarleton Business Estate at the junction with Southport Road (A565), knocked down to make way for the store.
Under the same plan, local logistics firm GBA Services will build new offices on the same land, allowing it to expand its workforce without having to leave the area.
Introducing the application to a committee meeting held via video link, council officer Jill Ryan explained that a “large number” of supportive comments from residents had been submitted by the planning agent but ended up in the case officer’s junk email folder and were only discovered shortly before.
The comments mostly referred to increased shopping choice and job opportunities for people living nearby as well as reduced travel time and pollution and an improvement in the site’s appearance.
Both companies had already received permission to develop on the land but submitted the new plan to allow Aldi to slightly modify the layout and add a substation and lobby area.
Rival supermarket firm the Co-operative
Group had failed in a High Court challenge against the previous approval and was among those to raise objections this time.
The committee heard that an independent retail impact assessment was carried out which concluded that allowing the new store “would not have a significant impact on the vitality of existing retail providers in the area”, with the Booths store in Hesketh Bank and Tarleton’s smaller Co-op store.
Proposing approval of the application, Cllr David O’Toole said: “For those that remember the Ram’s Head pub before it became a restaurant and the Bay Leaf eventually, the Ram’s Head pub was in some state of disrepair and to be perfectly frank it had served its days.
“So we’re not losing a heritage site because when it became Quentin’s they changed it so much that it lost its character by that time anyway. For those of you that know the site, it was an extremely untidy site for many years, left derelict with the huge concrete boulders put in front of the entrance to stop various organisations getting into it.
“I think this is a benefit to the community rather than anything else.”
The development will also see a pedestrian crossing created on the A565 and pedestrian and bus improvements also carried out.
Committee members voted 10 to none in favour of approving the application with one abstention. Subject to the council’s director for development and regeneration and the Secretary of State making no objection, the development can now go ahead.