A car park for around 100 rail commuters has been approved in Grantham on land which once had bolder ambitions.

South Kesteven District Council has approved revised plans from the Tanvic Group concerning a site off Wharf Road, which in 2007 was to form part of a 'Station Gateway Area' with proposals for retail, hotel and office use as part of a Grantham Town Centre Masterplan.

The proposals never came to fruition, though in their planning application Tanvic say the "Station Gateway" aspirations remain and continue to potentially blight the site.

Therefore, the company seeks to demolish some existing buildings and construct a car park to support the development and refurbishment of their existing Tanvic tyre and Service Centre.

In 2017, the company applied to the council to build 136 car parking spaces, plus eight for its customers. But this has since been reduced to an approved 99 car parking spaces with covered cycle parking, charging points for four electric vehicles and seven accessible parking spaces.

A council report, recommending conditional approval to the parking, says the site currently has an industrial character, with much storage use, including of tyres.

It noted opposition from InvestSK, the council-owned development company, which said the site should retain its employment use, especially as it was close to existing businesses.

InvestSK said there was demand for such employment use and the site should be marketed for this. It also doubted the need for such parking.

However, planning officers said such car parking would encourage the use of trains as a sustainable form of transport. There was also "no evidence to propose that such a use of a car park would prohibit any future redevelopment proposals".

Their report added: "The use of the site for a commuter car park will provide parking for the town centre and the railway station to improve commuter choice. It would also bring into use a vacant site which has been unused/under-used for some time.

"It is not considered that the use of the site for a car park would be detrimental to the overall supply of employment land within the district and due to the nature of the development it can be reasonably assumed that it could be used for employment land in future, potentially as part of a wider redevelopment scheme."