Developer submits plans for new Liverpool city region scheme that would include an M&S Food outlet, Lidl supermarket and units for small businesses. Andrew Brown reports

Plans have been revealed to create a new M&S Food outlet, Lidl supermarket and business park next to Formby Bypass, creating “substantial employment opportunities”.

This scheme would also include small-scale business starter units, co-working spaces, light industrial facilities and new research and development hubs.

Local residents could also see a new medical facility, a Costa Coffee drive-through and another drive-through, and a new junction off Formby Bypass.

A planning application by Sefton and Formby Developments has been submitted to Sefton Council for the 31.35-acre site in Formby.

Owners say the site, on land the the north of Formby Industrial Estate and east of the A565 Formby Bypass, is “strategically phased to enable the site’s ultimate purpose of creating substantial employment opportunities”.

It would include a 23,500 sq ft Lidl with 123 parking spaces, 21,600 sq ft M&S Food store with 178 parking spaces, a 1,798 sq ft Costa Coffee drive-through and a second drive-through that will be in outline planning.

A new junction would be built to facilitate access and servicing for the development. The first phase also includes a 11,120 sq ft community medical facility.

In its planning application, on behalf of Sefton and Formby Developments, Mono Architectural Design said: “As a whole, the proposed development will deliver the high-quality business park envisaged by the Local Plan policies, which will perform a strategic role in attracting significant local and inward investment and generating a high level of job outputs within a high-quality environment.

“However, it will be necessary for the development proposals to include a limited number of other uses in order to cross-subsidise / enable the delivery of the proposed employment floorspace.

In particular, these other uses will cross subsidise the construction of a new signal-controlled junction on Formby Bypass to provide access to the business park, will enable significant site constraints to be overcome and will facilitate the provision of essential infrastructure and utility supplies to support the employment function, without which the business park would not be viable in isolation.

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“The business park will remain the dominant use and employment uses will be the primary job generators, with the enabling development being subordinate in scale but, nevertheless, also making a valid contribution towards job outputs.”

Potential employment uses include small-scale starter units for small businesses, co-working spaces, light industrial facilities and research and development hubs.