A DISCOUNT supermarket company is making a second attempt to set up shop in Malvern Link.

The German chain Lidl wants to convert the former eurohaus premises off Worcester Road.

A previous application for the same site was thrown out by Malvern Hills District Council last summer.

The scheme had aroused a great deal of opposition from local residents, who gathered more than 800 signatures on a petition resisting the plan.

Much of the opposition focused on the area's traffic problems, which protesters said the scheme would make worse.

They feared that traffic would be forced off the main Worcester Road into "rat- runs" through residential roads behind Malvern Link.

Tom Falcon, of Chillerton Court, almost opposite the proposed Lidl site, was one of the organisers of the petition.

Commenting on the new application, he said: "The traffic problems have not improved in the time since Lidl made their first application. In fact, it's as bad as ever and it jams all the way through the Link."

Mr Falcon said opposition from locals would be just as strong now as it was to the original plan.

The first plan called for the demolition of the existing building and the erection of a new supermarket. But the latest scheme is only for change of use of the existing building, resulting in a store with a retail floor space of about 455 sq metres.

The plan will be considered by Malvern Hills District Council in due course.

Eurohaus closed its doors in January 2000 when the site was sold to Lidl. The first planning application was submitted in March that year but the decision on it was not made until June 2001.

After the refusal, a Lidl spokesman reaffirmed the firm's determination to set up in the Link. He said: "We're going to push as hard as we can to get this one to go ahead."

Lidl has declined to comment on the latest plan.