A new neighbourhood centre featuring a food store, commercial units and apartments could be built on a former pub site under a new £2.5m plan unveiled by Lincolnshire Co-op.
The community retailer has submitted a planning application to the City of Lincoln Councilto build a new centre on a brownfield site on Skellingthorpe Road in Lincoln. The land was formerly the Monson Arms pub, which has been closed since early 2016.
Subject to planning approval, the old pub building would be demolished and a new 3,000 sqft Lincolnshire Co-op food store would be built, with two smaller commercial units alongside. 10 one and two bed rental apartments would be created above.
Under the plan, a car park would provide 32 spaces for shoppers and 11 for residents of the apartments.
The new outlet would replace Lincolnshire Co-op’s current Swanpool Food Store on the other side of Skellingthorpe Road.
It would offer shoppers a much-improved service with around 50 per cent more retail space and would allow the store to offer a larger range including more fresh fruit and veg, plus additional chilled products.
Jobs at the existing food store would transfer over and it’s envisaged 10 more roles would be created in the new outlet thanks to the expansion.
If permission was granted, the two smaller units would have a range of commercial uses and would be marketed to let.
Lincolnshire Co-op’s Store Development Manager Matthew Wilkinson said: “We have lots of loyal customers and members in that area of the city and we want to invest in developing the services we provide for them.
“The proposed larger outlet would be more accessible, have dedicated customer and residents’ parking and enable us to offer a wider range of products.
“This £2.5m scheme would see the shopping experience in our store vastly improved and make it easier for our hard-working colleagues to provide great service and choice.
“If the plans were approved, we believe we’d be making a positive impact on the local environment too, as we’d be bringing a brownfield site back into economic use.”
If the scheme to build the new neighbourhood centre is approved it would then be put out to tender to local construction firms.
It’s hoped work could start on the Skellingthorpe Road site at the beginning of 2019 with the new store opening by the end of the year. The existing Lincolnshire Co-op food store would stay trading as normal throughout that period.
Lincolnshire Co-op plans to demolish the buildings on the existing Swanpool site in late 2019. The Society is in touch with its tenants about this and a separate outline planning application has been submitted to the City of Lincoln Council with Lincolnshire Co-op’s proposal for a development on the land.
If this application was approved, a residential development would be created. A full planning application with details of the residential accommodation would be submitted at a later stage.
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