Discount supermarket Lidl’s plans to knock down Hereford’s Three Counties Hotel and replace it with one of its branches has resurfaced, but on a smaller scale.
The hotel on the A465 Belmont Road to the southwest of the city is currently being used to house asylum seekers.
Lidl made an earlier outline proposal for the site over a year ago, which drew over 200 letters of objection. The company now describes this application as “withdrawn”, though Herefordshire Council’s website shows it as still active and undecided on.
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Sitting to the northeast of the site and oriented roughly north-to-south, the store proposed in the latest application would have a floorspace of just under 2,000 square metres, down from the 2,700 sq m in the earlier proposal. The current hotel occupies 3,100 sq m.
It would have 118 parking spaces, described on plans as “Lidl-only”.
In light of advice from council transport officers, the new application also proposes a series of improvements to the access from Belmont Road, including new shared cycle and footways on either side of the road and a larger island in the middle.
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The shop would open between 8am and 10pm Mondays to Saturdays and bank holidays, and from 10am to 4pm on Sundays. Lidl has no plans to offer additional services from the branch, such as the takeaway food option previously proposed.
Once up and running the new store would provide 40 full-time-equivalent jobs, the company says.
It commissioned an impact assessment which concluded that the new store “is not likely to give rise to a significant adverse impact on existing, committed and planned public and private investment in the centre or on centre vitality and viability”.
The new application also addresses transport, flood risk, ecological, landscaping and noise issues.
Comments on the application, numbered 231703, can be made until July 13.
The Three Counties Hotel currently houses up to 120 asylum seekers following a ruling by the Home Office earlier this year, when it signed a 12-month contract with its current owners.
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