by Trevor Bevins, Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Tesco and Starbuck are among the retailers likely to come to Littlemoor, Weymouth in a massive expansion of the area.
Around 500 homes have already been given the go-ahead on farmland north of the existing shopping centre – with dozens already built.
Now details are emerging of the commercial developments being planned to the west of the housing schemes including supermarket, a coffee drive through, care home and trade park style commercial units.
The development is likely to create many jobs – although these have not yet quantified, but could easily amount to more than 200 full and part-time, in addition to construction workers over the three years the development is likely to take to be built.
Dorset Council is currently dealing with the details of the development, primarily on eight hectares of land owned mainly by Cambridge University colleges with public comments on the proposal open until November 7th.
The new application, for a site just off the Bincombe Bumps roundabout, makes no mention of some of the elements agreed in principle in the original outline planning from five years ago – including a hotel, car show rooms and a new primary school, although all could be added at a later stage on an adjacent plot of farmland.
Details of the proposals include a 25,000 square foot Tesco store as an ‘anchor’ tenant to the east of the site; a substantial care home to the north offering 66 bed space; the Starbucks drive through close to the entrance off Littlemoor Road and 29,000 square feet of trade units to the western side of the site together with what is shown as ‘a kiosk’ adjacent to the Tesco store and alongside a public open space and almost directly opposite the existing Littlemoor shopping centre.
Among the benefits of the scheme are jobs in retail, nursing and care, and catering along with a public square, according to the application to Dorset Council.
The full details of the application can be found on the Dorset Council website using the reference P/RES/2025/05831
Littlemoor north overall proposal