PLANS to open a Co-op store and café at the former Saffron restaurant and Club XES site in Ellesmere Port have collapsed.

It had been proposed for the former restaurant and nightclub on Flatt Lane to be demolished and the site redeveloped to provide a new 410 sq m Co-op convenience store with an adjoining café of 140 sq m.

Applicants said the new site would create a total of 30 jobs and remove what was becoming "an eyesore" as the former restaurant site was getting overgrown.

But correspondence uploaded to Cheshire West and Chester Council's planning portal on Tuesday, December 5 shows the applicants have formally withdrawn the plans as of December 4, citing frustration with the local authority that the application would have been recommended for refusal.

The correspondence reveals CWaC had said for the demolition and redevelopment of the site into a Co-op to go ahead, the applicants would have to show there were no suitable or alternative sites where a Co-op could be located. The authority said the former Iceland store on 2 Marina Drive, while only having on-street car parking, was of suitable size.

It also said the retail impact assessment which had been submitted by the applicants was out of date, as it had included the former Iceland store but did not take into account the nearby Farmfoods store or The Food Warehouse by Iceland on Mercer Walk.

The applicants responded with updated information, adding that Farmfoods "is a clearly different offer to the Co-op, based predominantly on frozen goods and with no non-food offer," adding the level of impact "cannot be in any way judged to be of a significant adverse level".

They added the 2 Marina Drive "wouldn't suit our requirements" as it was on a dead end road "which isn't convenient or practical for our customers", access to the site was "poor", the unit size was "too big for our requirements" and it was closer to Asda and other competitors. In addition, the current lease on that unit expires in March 2025 and is a sublease.

But the council, after further discussion, insisted that the sequential test had not been passed and refusal of the planning application would be justified, adding that 2 Marina Drive was still a suitable site for what was proposed. New objections had also been highlighted from the council's highways department in relation to the proposed Flatt Lane site.

The applicants, after discussing the matter with Co-op, said they were "very disappointed" at the recommendation to refuse, and have formally withdrawn the application.