A NEW multi-storey car park covering seven floors will be built near the Middlebrook Retail Park, if plans are approved.

Developer Emerson wants to build the huge structure at its Parklands commercial park in Horwich.

If approved, it will offer staff at the businesses based at The Parklands as well as shoppers at the nearby Middlebrook Retail Park an extra 948 parking spaces once completed.

Emerson, through its commercial development arm Orbit Developments, wants to create an extra 22,826 sq m of parking space to serve the many businesses which now operate from the area, including Keoghs and Axa.

The planned location for the new car park will be between unit 3 — which houses Royal Bank of Scotland offices and plot 5, which is where a newly created office is based.

The site is mostly grass and trees at the moment, although the multi-storey would cover part of an existing area of car parking.

The total number of spaces that would be available at the multi-storey would be 1,021 — with the loss of 77 on the application site meaning that a total of 948 extra spaces will be created.

The idea is to form a seven-tier structure, measuring 61.5 metres by 47.5 metres by 21.6 metres.

On each floor there would be 124 parking spaces, apart from the seventh (85 spaces) and second (117) — which will be the access point from ground level.

A spokesman for the developer said that the building will aim to have as little impact as possible on those working nearby.

He said: “It has been designed to take account of the varying ground levels and the adjacent office buildings. “Whilst being a large structure it has been designed to minimise its visual impact and appropriate landscaping.”

The Parklands forms part of the overall Middlebrook development — which is owned and operated by Emerson and purports to be the ‘largest integrated and sustainable employment, leisure, sports and retail scheme in the country.’

The car park plans will now be examined by planning officers at Bolton Council.