Star date: 15th March 2021

FLOOD BASIN FRONTS NEW LIDL LOWER BROUGHTON STORE

Plans have been published for the new Lidl store on the site of Mocha Parade in Lower Broughton which show a new flood basin and 'wildflower meadow' between the store and the River Irwell.

The store is in Flood Zone 3a, which the Environment Agency rates as 'less vulnerable' - however, the proposal adds that the "surrounding area on Mocha Parade may flood in an event, resulting in anyone entering and exiting the Lidl Mocha Parade store being at risk". As expected, there's no room for any of the ex-shops to move back, just a health centre in the corner of the site.

Full details here...

After a zillion years in the making, a zillion years of run down embarrassment and furious shop owners, Salford City Council's big new regeneration plans for Mocha Parade can finally be underwhelmingly unveiled – a new Lidl store.

Well gone are the independent opticians, fish and chip shop, hairdressers, cafe, newsagent, butchers and chemists, and there's no space for them to return, unless they can squeeze into a proposed new health centre or disguise themselves as 'wildflowers'.

The single storey uniform design Lidl store will occupy 1.1 hectares of the site, and will be accompanied by 123 parking spaces, including seven for disabled people, nine for parents and children and two taxi spaces plus a wildflower garden.

While the store itself is in an area classed as Flood Zone 3a by the Environment Agency, and thus supposedly 'less vulnerable', the planning documents state that "the surrounding area on Mocha Parade may flood in an event, resulting in anyone entering and exiting the Lidl Mocha Parade store being at risk".

The planning documents also state that "A proposed flood defence basin has been provided as a gift in the wildflower meadow area, located on the south section of the site, to protect the site and the wider area" and "to accommodate any future flooding from the adjacent River Irwell"...

The mini flood basin, Lidl adds, "will act as a relief basin for flow entering the basin from the United Utilities sewer network, which would temporarily hold and release back into the river when river levels subside...The basin will act as an emergency basin for overland flow on the event that the river over spilled and it reaches the development site..."

Lidl's other specifications in its flood action plan include a big sign saying 'Closed' in the event of a flood warning, once the manager receives a text from the Environment Agency.

The proposal for the Lidl site is expected to be heard by Salford City Council's planning panel in the near future, with plans for the health centre to possibly follow...

See also previous Salford Star article - Mocha Parade Ghost Town - click here