Leicestershire County Council has told Lidl its planned Ashby supermarket 'does not fully assess the highway impact of the proposed development'.

The council's highways authority has now asked the chain store to provide 'further information'.

Lidl has made an application to North West Leicestershire District Council to demolish the current Ashfield House building in Resolution Road and construct a new supermarket close to the junction with Nottingham Road.

But it has been pointed out by residents, local councillors and Ashby Civic Society that the area is already congested with traffic using two other supermarkets - Tesco and Aldi - in the same area, along with other outlets off Dents Road.

Lidl responded to the criticisms at the time and has contested that the new store will not cause added traffic problems and have 'minimal impact'.

Now Leicestershire County Council Highways says the application from Lidl does not address this issue.

A response, posted on the North West Leicestershire District Council planning portal, reads: "The Local Highway Authority does not consider that the application as submitted fully assesses the highway impact of the proposed development and further information is required as set out in this response. 

Images: Lidl

"Without this information the Local Highway Authority is unable to provide final highway advice on this application."

In terms of site access, Highways has asked for more details.

The report adds: "The existing site access from Resolution Road will be used, which is the south-western arm of an existing four arm roundabout junction. 

"Resolution Road is an unclassified road with a speed limit of 30mph. 

"The submitted application form indicates that no alterations are being proposed to the site access. 

"The LHA notes that the red line boundary shown on the Proposed Site Plan does not accurately align with highway boundary. 

"Therefore, the LHA requests that the applicant submits a revised drawing demonstrating the accurate opposition of the red line boundary, particularly around the site access onto Resolution Road."

In a section on highway safety, the report adds: "The LHA has reviewed the Personal Injury Collision (PIC) analysis set out in the submitted Transport Assessment (TA). 

"The data has been gathered from CrashMap and it appears not to show all of recorded PICs in the most recent five-year period. 

"An assessment of PICs should therefore be undertaken based on data provided by Leicestershire County Council.

Fears have been expressed that the planned development would cause more traffic congetstion in the Resolution Road/Dents Road area off Nottingham Road. Photo: Instantstreetview.com

"The study area should be a minimum of 500m from the proposed site access and also include the extent of network that also includes junctions that are subject to junction capacity assessments.

County Council Highways also says that a revised transport assessment should be conducted.

The report added: "It appears that the existing trip generation from the, albeit currently unoccupied, office use of the site has not been considered in the submitted trip data.

"The LHA has reviewed the submitted TRICS data and considers the trip rates to be realistic. However, the weekday and weekend PM peak period has been shown to cover the development peak periods rather than the worst-case scenario in terms of background flows plus development traffic. It is also noted that the weekend peak periods are not consistent.

"A revised assessment should therefore be undertaken.

"The applicant has considered the draw from nearby supermarkets in the submitted Planning Statement, in particular the Aldi on Dents Road and the M&S Foodhall off Smithy Road, therefore deriving the origin of transferred trips. This detail does not appear to have been taken into consideration in the submitted Transport Assessment.

"Revised junction capacity assessments will be required once the observations above have been addressed."

The Highways Authority has also advised Lidl to make a contribution to continued improvements to the A511 as part of the Interim Coalville Transport Strategy.