Plans revealed for Lidl and nearly 130 apartments and houses in Dudbridge

These details have been released ahead of an official planning application for the Avocet Industrial Estate, which would see the scheme replace the original site of Stroud Metal Company, which is moving to a new base in Stonehouse.

Matthew Large, the managing director of SMC, has been working closely with Lidl to finalise the scheme which would provide 40 full-time jobs at the budget supermarket and safeguard a further 62 for SMC.

“There are immense benefits to the local community of this scheme which revitalises a much neglected site, currently blighted by flood risk,” he said.

“Provision is made for a Lidl budget foodstore. This is a reduction in the size of foodstore in comparison to a previous extant permission for another operator, though would create a mixture of 40 full and part time employment opportunities at the Lidl foodstore plus additional employment opportunities elsewhere on the site.

“The housing part of the scheme would create approximately 130 residential units on a regenerated brownfield site adjacent to the Stroudwater canal encouraging use of existing sustainable infrastructure and reducing development pressure on local green-field land elsewhere in the Stroud Valleys.”

Mr Large also feels that regenerating this area of Dudbridge could lead to further improvements, such as on Tricorn House which sits next to the Cainscross roundabout – plans to develop the site into assisted living residences have stalled.

Earlier this year, after support from Stroud District Council and the GFirst Local Enterprise Partnership, SMC was awarded a £3.5 million loan to facilitate the move to its new base in Brunel Way, Stonehouse - a process which has already cost the company £1.5 million.

Above - SDC chief exeutive David Hagg, SMC managing director Matthew Large and SDC leader Steve Lydon

Mr Large says that by selling the Dudbridge site for a supermarket and nearly 130 residences, SMC can pay back the loan so that Gfirst LEP can financially support other schemes.

The Dudbridge site already has SDC approval for a supermarket, which lasts until August next year.

This application, designed by SR Davis Architects, comes as two further supermarket applications are to be debated by SDC’s planning committee.

Tomorrow, councillors on the development control committee will debate an application for an Aldi on the Bath Road Trading Estate and also plans for a ‘discounter’ foodstore and 50 homes on the Daniels Industrial Estate, submitted by Industrial Sales Ltd.

Both of these applications are recommended for approval by SDC officers, and this third application – which will not reach this week’s committee – could complicate final decisions which have already been repeatedly postponed.

Officers have already stressed that approval for one scheme does not mean approval must be given to either of the others.

The plans for the Dudbridge site would see the retention and refurbishment of the iconic redbrick Redler building, the former factory would be retained as part of the scheme as an apartment structure.

Commercial units will be built into some of the ground floor space of a new build Redler House, which would join at the middle of the current building.

Roads at either side of the Redler building will form the access points for the site, with the new 2.24-acre Lidl being located on the Cainscross roundabout side of the plot, with 132 parking spaces allocated for shoppers.

The scheme would feature pedestrian access to the Stroudwater Navigation towpath and also a play area.

Making up the 124 residential units would be 73 houses and a range of apartment blocks, some of which will be four-storeys high.

Each apartment building would have allocated parking for cars and a cycle bin for bikes.