A CONTROVERSIAL bid to build a discount supermarket next to Morrisons is expected to be given the go ahead.

The plan, which was hanging in the balance only weeks ago, was recommended for approval by Vale Royal Borough Council's planning committee after they visited the site last week.

The application, which strays from local planning policy, will now have to go before the full council who will make the final decision.

Developer Bushwing plc want to change existing planning permission and turn the empty unit next to Carpet World and adjacent to Morrisons, on Wharton Retail park, Nat Lane, into a Lidl discounter.

The plans also include a £65,000 contribution to the Weaver Valley Cycleway if permission is granted.

Bushwing supported its bid with a study by experts Matthews and Goodman into the need for another store on the Nat Lane site.

And the report found that a Lidl discounter would compliment the existing Morrisons store and strengthen the town as a shopping area in the face of potential competition from Northwich and Middlewich.

The study controversially predicted that the store would only have a three per cent impact on business in the town centre.

Vale Royal Planners requested a review from their own consultants Dunlop Haywood which found that Bushwing had not submitted sufficient information about the implications the store would have for Winsford Town Centre.

Planners were also concerned about insufficient parking provision and the fact there was no proposal to improve public transport to the site.

But it was decided by the planning committee at the end of last month that a site visit should be carried out in order to assess all the issues involved before a decision was made.

Borough Clr and Winsford Town Clr Pam Booher, member of the planning committee, said: "I have mixed feelings about it. It could be good for this end of the town and there has been call for more competition on this side of the bridge. but let's hope it doesn't take business away from the town centre.

"The supermarket will be something similar to Aldi. The building and car park is already there so I would say it could be open within a couple of weeks once they get the fittings and fixtures in."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.