£100m homes, hotel and retail project hits Tesco store hopes

Plans for a new Tesco store on the Humber Growers site at Welton on the A63 were to have been discussed by councillors at a planning meeting at County Hall in Beverley later this month.

But East Riding Council said the submission of plans for the £100m Brough South development last Friday meant they may have to be considered together at another meeting.

The proposals for Brough South will see 800 new homes, a hotel, business premises and a mixture of retail outlets built on a 100-acre site east of Skillings Lane, owned by Horncastle Group, BAE Systems and the Jordan family, over the next 10 years.

The developers claim the scheme will create more than 700 permanent jobs, and another 100 directly and 100 indirectly during construction.

They say their plans address the lack of school places by funding extra facilities at Welton and South Hunsley schools.

Ian Hodges, managing director of Horncastle Group, said they had listened to residents’ comments: “What they identified was the need for additional facilities; the previous development was very housing orientated and left the community somewhat out of balance.

“There wasn’t enough choice. They want new facilities, they need to be appropriately scaled.

“They don’t want to create a regional shopping centre like Kingswood.”

Both schemes would be accessed off the A63 via the same busy junction, but Mr Hodges claimed their proposals had the advantage as it wouldn’t be visible from the dual carriageway and could be accessed by other means than the car.

He said they would create a new roundabout at the junction of the slip road off the A63 and Welton Road.

“Our site won’t be visible from the A63, it won’t be a magnet and divert traffic from the A63,” he said.

The Tesco store, earmarked for the Humber Growers site, has been reduced in size from the original scheme submitted last July and two non-food units have been removed from the plans.

At approximately 26,000 sq ft, it will be around the same size as the Tesco store in Market Weighton, and will include a cafe and petrol station.

The corporate affairs manager for Tesco, Deborah Hayeems, said: “We look forward to the council making a decision on our application to bring 250 much needed new jobs, choice and opportunities to Welton, Elloughton and Brough.

“A Tesco on Common Lane will be convenient, allowing residents already travelling home to break their existing journeys, without forcing additional traffic through the centre of a large housing estate.

“The new store can be open within 24 months, allowing Humber Growers to invest in the company’s new facilities at Ellerker, helping protect existing local jobs.”

The chairman of Elloughton-cum-Brough Town Council, Bryan Davis, welcomed the news that the applications would be heard together: “It is a good news.

“It means they will have to look at the whole of the built-up area of Elloughton, Brough and Welton, as a complete entity and look at the traffic implications for the whole lot and not just Tesco.

“It is already a dangerous and congested junction.”

He added: “I’d think around 90 per cent of people from the public meetings would really want something in the centre of Brough, not on the Humber Growers site.

“We have worked very hard to establish a commercial centre in the centre of Brough and don’t want it pulled away.

“Elloughton cum Brough accepts that it needs more supermarket provision – but the location is the key element.”

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