A MASSIVE supermarket plan for York has been abandoned, after a row over restricted delivery hours that the company said were simply unworkable.

Sainsbury’s has dropped plans to convert the B & Q on Hull Road into a 60,000 sq ft supermarket.

Plans for the conversion were revealed 2013, and planning permission was granted in January 2015, but on Tuesday a spokesman for the supermarket giant confirmed the scheme has been scrapped.

He said: “We can confirm that we will no longer be proceeding with our plans to open a Sainsbury’s at the B&Q, Hull Road, in York.

“Obviously this is disappointing but the planning conditions restricting our delivery hours means that it is simply not viable for us to operate the store.”

York Press:

Rumours that the deal was on the verge of collapsing have been circulating for some time, and last week Sainsbury’s declined to comment as a planning wrangle about delivery hours intensified.

The planning permission granted by City of York Council banned deliveries to Hull Road between midnight and 5am - to protect local residents from noise. Sainsbury’s and B & Q appealed against that restriction, saying it was “imperative” that the store could take deliveries 24 hours a day.

However the planning inspectorate took a different view, and an official voiced “serious concerns” and said the the inspector could reverse the council’s decision completely.

The noise and disruption caused by overnight deliveries, and the increase in traffic around the site, meant the inspector believed more, not fewer, restrictions would be needed on the deliveries.

On Thursday a B & Q spokesman confirmed their store would be staying put.

They added: “Taking into account the changes that have occurred within our business since the submission of the planning application in 2014, we can confirm we have withdrawn the planning appeal and let our 99 employees at B&Q York know that their Hull Road store will no longer be relocating.”

Graham Kennedy, who runs the nearby Inner Space Station filling station, has been a leading opponent of the Sainsbury’s plans.

He welcomed the news, saying he was delighted to hear the scheme had been dropped, but said he still had questions to ask City of York Council about its original planning decision.