DETAILS of a planned new Tesco store for Huddersfield town centre have been unveiled.

The retailer has formally submitted plans for the huge new store to Kirklees Council.

It wants to build a superstore on the site of the existing Huddersfield Sports Centre and two tower blocks of flats.

There has been anger over the plans, which also involve the building of a new Sports Centre on land at Springwood. Objectors say it will hasten the death of the traditional town centre.

But Tesco said its plans for the new store at the junction of Southgate and Leeds Road would “provide a retail store to meet identified local needs” as well as improve “linkages” between the town centre, the Leeds Road retail parks and the Galpharm Stadium complex.

The company claims it will create an extra 300 jobs in addition to its existing 500-plus workforce.

Tesco has submitted plans for the new store, which would replace the existing sports centre, the 1960s-built Lonsbrough and Ibbotson flats and a number of other buildings.

The application forms part of a wider package of redevelopment which also includes building a new sports centre on Spring Grove car park and redeveloping the existing Tesco store site.

The plans for a new store envisage a single-storey store with bulk storage area, service yard, home delivery facility, cafe, customer toilets and staff rooms as well as a petrol station at the corner of Leeds Road and Old Leeds Road. There will also be 764 parking spaces on two levels below the store.

The store would feature a colonnade of timber columns along the Leeds Road frontage as well as an atrium and tower at the store entrance on the Leeds Road-Southgate junction.

The development would also boast environmental features, including rainwater harvesting, wind catchers on the roof to aid natural ventilation, time controlled lighting and a gas combined heat and power plant.

A document supporting the plan said the “monolithic” residential tower blocks dominated the site while the sports centre was of “basic, modern form and is not considered to be of any architectural merit.

It said a group of smaller buildings off Old Leeds Road were of no architectural interest with three of them vacant and a fourth in disrepair.

The document claimed: “The proposed eco-store design, which incorporates the use of timber, stonework and glazing, will enhance the site.”

It said the use of modern materials was intended to complement rather than imitate the historic buildings in the Conservation Area on the town centre side of Southgate.

Opponents of the new store plan say it will cause an overall loss of jobs as local businesses fold due to competition from the supermarket giant.

Work on the new sports centre is scheduled to start in November and be completed by November, 2012.

It is hoped to open the new store in February, 2014.