Plans for a new village centre in Sandymoor are set to be approved next week, more than 16 years after they were first raised.

Halton Council’s planning committee will consider the proposals for a new “district centre”, including shops, a nursery and supported accommodation for the over-55s, at its meeting on Monday, November 2.

The plans have been recommended for approval by council planning officers, and would see the new village centre built on land surrounding the existing community hall.

Residents of Sandymoor have had no local shops since the settlement was established 20 years ago, despite promises that a new local centre would be built alongside the area’s housing developments.

Along with a convenience store, a nursery and a vet, the plans feature two takeaways, another shop and a restaurant, but some residents have called for a GP surgery instead.

The Sandymoor Community Hall has also raised objections that the new nursery could put the existing one, hosted by the community centre, out of business.

But planning officers said this was not a matter for the committee and, in any case, the hall would still be able to function if the nursery did have to close down.

Plans for a new village centre in Sandymoor have been in the works for nearly two decades, during which time the area has had very few amenities.

Planning permission for a new village centre was originally granted back in 2004, five years after Sandymoor had established itself as a community.

Those plans would have seen 34 homes and 3000sqm of commercial, health, recreation and leisure facilities built on the site.

An amended scheme was approved three years later, but still no work was carried out so while Sandymoor swelled in size its new residents still had no local shops.

Planning officers said: “There are very strong, legitimate, expectations of existing Sandymoor residents that the statutory development plan system will provide a local centre on the site that has been allocated.”

The current proposals, from developer Lane End Group, were originally submitted in early 2019 and were supposed to receive approval last October but the decision was put off.