DEMOLITION work is underway on the former Stroud Metal Company site in Dudbridge, ahead of a new Lidl superstore being built there.

Work at the Avocet Industrial Estate will also include flood mitigation measures and is expected to last a couple of months.

Lidl bosses are hoping to start the store build in early 2021.

A Lidl spokesman said: “We hope to start construction in the new year once the land owner has completed their enabling works.”

The German discount chain received planning permission from Stroud District Council in March 2018 to build the store alongside around 130 homes.

Stroud Metal Company relocated to a purpose built factory in Stonehouse in July 2019 partly due to the flood risks at the Dudbridge site.

Once the demolition has been completed, work will begin to bring the entire site out of the flood plain and ensure it’s not a flood risk even in severe weather.

Before it submitted plans for the new store store, Lidl already had planning permission for a bigger store at the former Redler factory site, also in Dudbridge.

But the supermarket chain revised its plans in 2017 and submitted a fresh ‘hybrid’ application for a smaller store, with housing and flood mitigation measures.

The completed Lidl store will cover 2206sq metres and have 132 parking spaces.

The housing part of the scheme will create approximately 130 residential units on a regenerated brownfield site adjacent to the Stroudwater Canal, reducing development pressure on local green-field land elsewhere in the Stroud Valleys.

The 130 residences will include a mixture of flats, duplex apartments and houses.

At the time of the original plans being revealed, Matthew Large, managing director of Stroud Metal Company, said: “There are immense benefits to the local community of this scheme which revitalises a much

neglected site, currently blighted by flood risk.

“With the works to be completed, the entire site will brought completely out of the flood plain allowing for its continued flood risk free use even in a severe flood event.

“Completion of the flood alleviation works would remove a substantial number of off-site houses from flood risk altogether.

He added: “By revitalising a neglected area of Dudbridge, this would encourage redevelopment of other derelict premises such as Tricorn House.”

The development, when complete is expected to create a mixture of 40 full and part-time employment opportunities at the Lidl foodstore plus additional employment opportunities elsewhere on the site.

Photos by Simon Pizzey.