Lidl looks set to be given the green light to open a new supermarket on the Altrincham Retail Park – just eight months after its plans were knocked back by Trafford Council.
The German supermarket’s request was previously rejected by the council, as the chain had already agreed to build a new store on the Altair site within four years. Trafford Council deemed the Altair complex to be a “sequentially preferable site”, but Lidl believed the time frame to be unrealistic and challenged the verdict.
The council has since reversed their decision, recognising the benefits to the local economy a new supermarket chain could bring to Altrincham Retail Park.
A resubmitted application will now go before Trafford’s planning committee this week with a recommendation to approve the request from the Council.
In a report Trafford’s planning committee said: “Preventing a new Lidl food store at the application site until such time as the Lidl at Altair is advanced would in fact be to delay the aforementioned benefits.”
They added: “There can be no firm guarantee that the Lidl at Altair will come about, within the expected timeframe or indeed at all.”
If this application is approved, Lidl will occupy a third of the existing Homebase unit with added plans to build a new 13,200 sq ft garden centre on the same site.
