SUPERMARKET giant Tesco will not be coming to Kirkburton – for now.

The two-storey Tesco Express bid has been rejected by council planners after Tesco’s property agents found themselves caught in a ‘no-win’ parking conundrum.

With only nine spaces planned for the site itself, it was hoped an extra informal parking area behind the vacant site on North Road would be the answer to overcoming planners’ and residents’ concerns.

After parking complications caused the withdrawal of an application for the site last year, Tesco wisely accompanied this year’s plan with a second application to purchase and re-surface the informal area and offer it as communal village parking, in exchange for the approval of the medium sized store.

But council highways officers poured cold water on the idea saying the extra traffic pulling out of the new car-park would be too dangerous – despite it already being used on a daily basis.

The plans for the former Jet petrol station, which closed in the autumn of 2003, were also criticised for not offering adequate manoeuvring space for Tesco’s large delivery wagons.

Clr Christine Smith, who had previously predicted the application would fail, said parking in the village was always a worry.

She said: “It’s difficult for anybody going to the hairdresser’s – you’re worrying all the time that you have to move your car. The officers have tried to talk to them but obviously an agreement couldn’t be reached.”

A Kirklees planning spokesman confirmed there had been strong objections from the highways team and local councillors.

The spokesman said Tesco now had three options; walk away, come back with a fresh application or go to appeal.

The Express & Chronicle contacted Tesco’s Manchester based property agents to see if their supermarket bid was dead, but they declined to comment.

Meanwhile plans for another Kirkburton petrol station have also collapsed. Huddersfield based Lanson Homes had hoped to demolish the Texaco filling station on Penistone Road and build a retail unit with six apartments above it.

But in a sign of the hard times for property developers, it has emerged that Lanson has gone into receivership and that the application has been withdrawn.