Decision about Tesco's giant Durrington store is due this summer

The retail giant has lodged a new planning application with Worthing Borough Council and it is expected to go before the development control committee towards the end of June.

Outline permission was granted on May 6 last year to provide a new district centre incorporating the superstore, shopper caf, unit shops and community centre.

If the new application is approved, work could start this year and be completed in 2010.

A Tesco spokesman said the new store would provide 547 jobs, full and part-time, against the present store's staff strength of 294.

The new 13,138sq metre superstore, to include nine retail units, would be twice the size of the current supermarket.

It would be built on land west of the existing supermarket and car park, and the current centre would continue to operate until the new store opens.

As part of the wider West Durrington development, a new vehicle and pedestrian access would be built to the west to link the new district centre to the proposed 875-home new housing development north-west of the site.

The western access will join Fulbeck Avenue at a roundabout.

While the car park has a standard layout, the route through it has been designed to deter "rat-running" between Fulbeck Avenue and New Road/Romany Road.

The latest application includes plans to accommodate "mall trading", small stalls often seen in shopping centres to add interest and variety, along with nine smaller shops and a caf to create the new district centre.

Contemporary design features incorporate simple, clean lines, and different colour-cladding systems to create visual interest. The plans propose to reduce the height of the shop units at the southern end of the mall from the original outline application, to reflect the scale of the housing estate around Varey Road.

The plans can be seen at Worthing Borough Council, Portland House, Richmond Road, Worthing, or on www.worthing.gov.uk.

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Comments should be sent to the development control manager at the above address by May 14.