Churchill Retirement Living is interested in redeveloping a closed Tesco supermarket in Farrell Close, Cirencester.

The store has been vacant for a year and the company has submitted a request for an environmental impact assessment screening opinion to Cotswold District Council ahead of submitting a formal planning application.

A letter to Cotswold District Council on behalf of Churchill Retirement Living says: "The redevelopment of the site seeks to provide retirement living apartments together with up to 280sqm of commercial space.

"The development includes communal areas, access, car parking and landscaping. The retirement living apartments will be provided in a single block. The commercial uses will front onto Farrell Close to the north and part of Brewery Car Park to the east.

"The end use for the commercial units is not yet known. It will either offer one large space or could be split into smaller ones. This could be used for retail, café, restaurant, office or studio/start up space.

"This request seeks to screen up to 70 apartments, although it is likely that the number of dwellings proposed in a future planning application will be less than this."

In its screening opinion on the environmental impact assessment, the council said: "The proposal falls below the thresholds set out in Schedule 2 of the regulations. 

"Having considered the criteria stated within Schedule 3, the Local Planning Authority concludes that the proposed development will not be likely to have significant environmental effects having regard to its characteristics, size and location and is therefore considered not to be EIA development requiring the submission of an Environmental Statement."

A spokesperson for Cotswold District Council said: "The submission we have received is not a planning application. It is a submission made by the developer to ascertain whether the council considers that any future application that they may make for the proposals meets the threshold in terms of scale or impacts so as to require Environmental Assessment.

"Should they then decide to make a planning application we will of course be advertising it in the usual manner so as to ascertain the public's views but unless and until a planning application is made it would not be appropriate to comment further."