Lidl retail store plan for Birstall deferred following Tesco objection

Plans to build a Lidl supermarket and a Home Bargains store side by side on land at Birstall Retail Park off the M62 have been deferred following an objection from Tesco.

The scheme is earmarked for a site off Bankwood Way, close to the Showcase Cinemas multiplex, on land formerly occupied by office blocks.

It is set to include 175 parking spaces, a garden centre for the Home Bargains store and projected to create 75 full-time jobs.

Staff at Kirklees Council had recommended the project for approval when it came before the Strategic Planning Committee (Nov 18).

However Tesco said a retail assessment being used by the council to evaluate the scheme was not in the public domain and that it and other third parties had not had time to make comments.

It also said Lidl GB Ltd had failed to undertake a robust health check analysis to demonstrate the health of the existing town centres.

Tesco operates a Tesco Express in Birstall town centre just one-and-a-half miles from the dual site near the cinema.

At the same meeting:

Approved: Five commercial units and associated yard works at Butt End Mills, Chadwick Lane, Lower Hopton, Mirfield.

Approved: Improvements including mezzanine floor to Dewsbury Market, Cloth Hall Street, Dewsbury.

Approved: Clubhouse, additional changing facilities building, boundary treatments, storage facilities and floodlighting, works to existing pitches, and new hybrid and five-a-side pitches and car park at East Bierley Playing Fields, Hunsworth Lane, East Bierley.

Approved: Six-space car park at Trabel House, 26-28 Cambridge Road, Huddersfield.

Approved: 2.4m-high perimeter fencing at Royds Hall Community School, Luck Lane, Paddock, Huddersfield.