AN M&S supermarket in Stanway could be made bigger as plans have been submitted to move it to a new unit.

The Churchmanor Estates Company has been granted planning consent at Stane Park, opposite Sainsbury’s, for an M&S store.

It has now submitted an amendment to planning permission to move the M&S Food Hall from its 11,800sqft unit to a new 20,000sqft unit.

Stane Retail Park includes a B&Q together with an Aldi supermarket and five other units for restaurants.

The scheme includes £2.5million for highways improvements which will be paid for by Churchmanor and include traffic lights at the Eight Ash Green A12 junction and duelling of part of the Western Bypass.

Stephen Clark, of Churchmanor, said: “I am pleased Marks and Spencer decided to take more space at Stane Retail Park and the enlarged unit size is very much now the trend with M&S Food Hall units.

“We feel confident this will enhance the success of the retail park and provide an improved shopping experience for the residents of Stanway.”

Robert Morray, head of property planning at M&S, said: “We’ve been serving customers in Colchester town centre for more than 100 years and we’re really pleased to be able to improve our offering in the area.

“Our new store will serve the residents of Stanway the very best of M&S food and drink and we look forward to updating the community as plans for the store progress.”

The second phase of the development at Stane Park will join the existing Leisure Park, already home to the Princess Charlotte pub, Nandos, KFC and Starbucks.

Coast to Coast and Bella Italia were due to open last year, but Coast to Coast said it is no longer looking to open and Bella Italia admitted it has yet to make a decision.

The first phase of Stane Park was given the go-ahead by a planning inspector in 2017.

It was initially refused by Colchester Council’s planning committee before the Government inspector overturned their decision. Churchmanor Estates, which owns Stane Park, has started work on its neighbouring retail park earlier this year.