Communities across Liverpool have seen pubs in their area quietly run out of business and become supermarkets pretty often over the years.
Take Fazakerley for example, where Aldi and Lidl moved into the former Copplehouse and Grey Chaser sites respectively.
It had been expected that when the doors closed for the final time at the Bridge Inn on Childwall Valley Road, Belle Vale, in 2015, it would follow suit and become the new home of a Home Bargains store as the budget chain opened a swathe of sites across the city.
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Yet almost seven years later, there is no sign of a new supermarket on the site of the former pub that had stood in the community since the 1930s.
This week, plans to amend the site for construction of the store had been expected to go before Liverpool Council’s planning committee, but were quietly withdrawn before proceedings got underway.
When approached as to why the application was removed, a PR firm for TJ Morris, site applicant and parent company for Home Bargains said “no comment.”
This has left the area and the community in limbo over the future of the site and “raises a lot of questions” according to Cllr Helen Thompson, a Belle Vale ward member and part of Liverpool Council’s planning committee.
She said: “It was a surprise it didn’t go ahead on Tuesday, I just don’t know what’s going on at the moment.
“Residents may very well have expected things to move along following the meeting on Tuesday.”
Cllr Thompson said discussions had been held about revamping the pub before its closure into a more family friendly venue but “nobody had the finances to do it.”
She added that since then, various applications have been agreed on the site.
The first such move came not long after the pub closed, with members of the planning committee giving the green light back to it being redeveloped for retail purposes in November 2016, despite initial objections from residents and councillors alike.
Then in 2020, as communities grappled with the coronavirus pandemic, an application was heard from TJ Morris to knock down the pub to create a Home Bargains store, which was expected to create dozens of new jobs and bring £5m in investment to the area.
That was also approved by the local authority planning body, with the final hurdle blocking construction seemingly cleared last September when legal agreements were completed.
A report submitted to the council said: "The unit will aim to provide sustainability by providing the height and servicing needed by a modern retail unit along with the efficiency created by a new build unit constructed to current building regulations.”
Yet no retail unit has appeared at the time of writing.
Tuesday’s plans had been to relocate a substation on the site to meet operational requirements and because of high costs associated with running the substation in its current position.
A report to planning committee members recommended it be approved.
Now, almost seven years since the pub - branded an eye sore by Belle Vale residents in the past - closed its doors for the final time, residents are no closer to a new budget store than they were then.
It is not known if Home Bargains still intend to build on the site, as the PR firm representing its parent company were unable to confirm the company’s intentions when approached for comment.
Until then, the site will remain unused, possibly for even longer.
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