Convenience store planned for car park of closed Chorley pub

An overhead view of the Minstrel Bar site in Chorley

A convenience store could soon be built next to a Chorley pub which closed down in 2023.

Applicants Thistlewood Properties and Admiral Taverns want to build the shop on the car park which once served the Minstrel Bar.

A planning permission submitted to Chorley Borough Council does not reveal who would be responsible for running the shop but explains it would stock a “basic range of groceries, ready meals, sandwiches and snacks, beers, wines and spirits and a range of fresh fruit and vegetables”.

The car park, on Cottage Fields, is currently used to serve the Eaves Green Road Local Centre and as part of the plans the remainder of the area will be formalised to proving 22 parking spaces.‘It should not take a protest for a housing association to repair someone’s home’

If the plans progress, the new shop would open seven days a week and employ 10 full-time and 10 part-time employees.

The application states: “The proposed convenience store will be sited in a defined Local Centre and will meet local needs for day-to-day top-up shopping, complementing existing shops and services in the centre.

“It has been designed of a scale and appearance to reflect its surroundings and sit comfortably within the site.

“The store will be located close to residential properties, above the existing shops, but will not detract from their amenity through noise from plant or car parking. Deliveries can be managed to avoid unnecessary disturbance.”

The Minstrel closed in April 2023, six months after the landlords said they’d been informed the building was being sold. It has remained out of use since then.

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