PLANS for a new drive-thru coffee shop at Poole’s Tower Retail Park have taken a step forward.

The Costa Coffee facility will be opening in a car park, next to the former Homebase unit. The car park will retain 160 of its 181 spaces.

The new Costa Coffee drive-thru will be a first for Dorset. Rival coffee shop chain Starbucks recently opened a drive-thru facility at Fleets Corner Industrial Estate in Poole, and it also has one in Ringwood Road, St Leonards.

Applicants Mayfair Capital Investment Management Land won planning permission for the drive-thru last year, and recently won additional permission to install various signage to advertise the facility.

Construction work is yet to begin, but £1 million will be invested in building the drive-thru.

Once completed, 18 full and part-time jobs will be created. The drive-thru’s proposed hours are 5.30am-11.30pm, seven days a week.

Topps Tiles, B&M and McDonald’s are also based at the retail park off Yarrow Road.

Similar plans for a Costa Coffee store with drive-thru facilities in Christchurch were rejected by councillors in February.

Members of the planning committee of Christchurch council (which now forms part of the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council) blocked the proposals from the chain to build a unit outside the Somerford Beefeater.

A number of issues were cited for refusal including the ‘unattractive and inappropriate form of development in its intended setting’.