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A planning application by Lidl for a new supermarket in Hadleigh, Suffolk, has drawn criticism after it confused the town with locations hundreds of miles away near Leeds and Birmingham.<\/p>\n
The German retailer submitted plans to Babergh District Council for a store on Lady Lane, but the application contained several geographical errors that local residents have called “disappointing”. <\/p>\n
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The Hadleigh Society, a local preservation group, identified multiple instances where the application mixed up the Suffolk town with areas in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.<\/p>\n
Among the errors, the application referred to Hadleigh as Halesowen, a market town near Birmingham in the West Midlands.<\/p>\n
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The document also mentioned a “91 bus service from Halton Moor to Pudsey Bus Station” – locations that are actually near Leeds in West Yorkshire.<\/p>\n
While Hadleigh does have a number 91 bus service, it does not serve Lady Lane, where the proposed supermarket would be built.<\/p>\n
Richard Fletcher, chair and secretary of the Hadleigh Society, noted that the mistakes were made by planning agents working on Lidl’s behalf, rather than the supermarket chain itself.<\/p>\n
“It is very depressing that there is a plethora of errors by obviously doing cut and pastes from other reports,” Fletcher explained.<\/p>\n
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He added: “Which suggests of course not a very sensible and local checking of the facts on the ground.”<\/p>\n
Fletcher, a former town planner, also expressed concerns about the supermarket’s design.<\/p>\n
“The design, you wouldn’t know if it is in Hadleigh or in fact in the West Midlands because of course it is to a corporate design and it doesn’t really fit in on the edge of a rural town,” Fletcher said.<\/p>\n
The Hadleigh Society separately raised concerns regarding safety and environmental impact in their official response.<\/p>\n
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