A £20M development featuring a 69-bedroom hotel and a supermarket in Hexham looks set to be approved.

Members of Northumberland County Council's strategic planning committee have been asked to approve a hybrid application for a four-storey Travelodge and Lidl supermarket on the town's former Bunker site when it meets on Tuesday.

The application, submitted by Union Property Development, also seeks full planning permission for a 2,177m squared food store plus customer parking and 250 public parking spaces, as well as outline permission for a further two retail units.

To accommodate the development, substantial works to the existing roundabout at the Alemouth Road and Station Road junction to provide better access to the site would be carried.

This includes widening the road and creating a fourth junction off the roundabout.

The scheme received six letters of objection but has to be decided by the strategic planning committee as the county council owns part of the site and because of the ‘strategic location’ of the development.

The planning officer’s report concludes that the proposals were acceptable despite the site being allocated as employment land for business and industrial use.

The plot was also outside the defined town centre but it was concluded that there weren’t any preferable sites that could accommodate the development more centrally.

The report suggested that the scheme would result in the creation of around 60 permanent jobs across the site and an estimated figure of £2.16m visitor spend from users of the Travelodge.