HOLMES Chapel residents are overwhelmingly behind plans for an Aldi store in the village, say developers.

Land at Manor Business Park is earmarked for the store, which would create 20 full-time and 25 part-time jobs.

Liberty Properties Developments and Aldi Stores UK have submitted a planning application for the store to Cheshire East Council.

A public exhibition on the scheme took place at The Victoria Club in Holmes Chapel on July 30, which was attended by 163 residents as well as councillors.

“There was excellent support, with 91.9 per cent of respondents supporting the development in principle,” said planning consultants Jones Lang Laselle (JLL).

“The exhibition helped to inform the design of the scheme, and amendments following the public consultation included additional landscaping on either side of the delivery entrance and additional disabled spaces within the car park.

“Holmes Chapel is poorly served by any main food shopping offer.

“Thus to carry out a weekly shop residents have to travel outside the defined catchment area to higher order centres including Sandbach, Congleton, Middlewich and Knutsford. This is not sustainable.

“The Aldi stores trade well. The Sandbach and Knutsford stores are trading particularly heavily, thus the business needs to provide additional floorspace.

“This proposal will take the pressure off existing stores, particularly Sandbach. The proposal will therefore benefit Aldi’s existing store operations, providing less busy stores so customers have a less congested and improved shopping experience.

“In addition to the existing Aldi stores it is expected that some trade will be diverted from the Lidl store in Middlewich.

“JLL also expects trade will be diverted from the closest large format supermarkets, including Morrison’s at Middlewich and Tesco at Congleton.

“Once the Sainsbury’s is implemented at the former Fisons site in Holmes Chapel it is likely some trade will be drawn from this store.

“However discount retailers draw trade more so from Asda, Morrison’s and Tesco, so any impact on the Sainsbury’s store is expected to be low.

“The large format operators and smaller specialist retailers will continue to perform an important role which cannot be fulfilled by the proposed Aldi.

“Thus any impact on the committed Sainsbury’s store and the smaller village centre stores is expected to be low.”

The Aldi store would open from 8am to 11pm Monday to Saturday, and 10am to 4pm on Sundays and Bank Holidays. The deadline for comments on the application is September 16.