Plans have been formally submitted to knockdown and rebuild Woods Supervalu and petrol filling station on the A27 trunk road between Portadown and Poyntzpass, after a public consultation.
The public consultation took place in June where locals asked questions but there was no negative feedback to the plans.
The planning application says that as the only petrol filling station on the A27 between Portadown and Poyntzpass at Tandragee, it is important that this main trunk road has adequate roadside services to serve the needs of drivers.
The plans seek to “enhance and extend” the existing site to provide the local community with an improved retail offering, enhanced shopping experience and more efficient fuel sales – with EV charging.
The proposed redevelopment would see a new PFS supermarket building in front of the existing store with a change of use of the existing PFS shop to a farm supplies shop.
The new supermarket will sit in the field located north of the existing site. It will be parallel with, and fronting on to, the Portadown Road. The net floorspace will increase by 61% to 798sq m. The number of food products in the store will increase from 5,000 to 9,000. Non-food items will increase from 1,000 to 1,500. There will also be typical PFS lines such as confectionery, newspapers and tobacco plus a deli/hot food counter, post office, off licence and lottery. There will also be male, female and disabled toilets.
Once the store has been constructed and the supermarket has transferred to the new store, the old store building will be refurbished as a new farm supplies shop for local farmers.
The current site is occupied by a petrol filling station with three pump islands. Access to these pumps is from the southern single lane entrance to the site. The application says this current access causes “conflicts and risks to safety”, as car drivers are accustomed to driving into a PFS to face the store, and many mistakenly access the site from the exit and leave through the entrance.
The proposed new layout aims to improve the flow of customers and vehicles around the site. This would be achieved by re-orientating the forecourt by 90 degrees.
For the new forecourt, there will be a new canopy, with new fuel pumps, bunkering facilities, EV charging facilities, a substation, new lighting, new site access and increased parking.
The existing parking on the site totals 39 spaces while the new plans increase that number to 171 spaces which will include eight disabled parking spaces, 12 EV charging spaces, two motorcycle spaces, two service bays, three HGV spaces and 10 bicycle spaces.
A Transport Assessment Report for the site was positive saying the proposals will improve the level of on-site car parking, improve circulation, provide dedicated areas for service, improved layout to help accommodate larger vehicles, upgrade the site’s access arrangement and provide updated facilities including new fuel pumps and EV charging.
