ASDA is to fight the council over its decision to stonewall plans for a superstore close to Hayes town centre.

An application for a supermarket and industrial units on the vacant Westlands 3 site, in North Hyde Road, Hayes, was refused at a planning committee meeting last November.

Councillors knocked back the bid because the area is designated employment land and therefore must be used for manufacturing, despite the prospect of around 500 new jobs and money towards improvements to the surrounding roads and paths.

The British Steel Pension Fund (BSPF), the joint applicants and owners of the site, say that the land allocation is ‘out of date and based on data that is no longer valid’, and have submitted an appeal in the hope that the Planning Inspectorate will overturn the borough’s ruling.

A public inquiry will be scheduled in due course.

A BSPF spokesman said: “The decision to appeal has not been taken lightly, but it has been done so in the belief that the outcome of the meeting was wrong.

“The use of this site for warehousing would secure a fraction of the jobs that our proposals are committed to delivering.”

Chris Martin, ASDA’s Senior Property Communications Manager added: “We strongly feel that the committee has failed to recognise the level of support that exists in the community for a new foodstore to serve Hayes.”

The plans appeared to have widespread support following a public exhibition in April 2011, and since news of the application broke that January, many people have written to the Gazette, optimistic about the prospect of jobs and the greater choice for shoppers.

The eight-and-a-half acre estate was used for manufacturing for much of the twentieth century, as Hayes was establishing itself as a centre of industry.

During the 1960s, Westland Helicopters, which had merged with Fairey Aviation, built aircraft there.

The company moved out of the area at the beginning of the 1970s, and since then, it has predominantly been used for warehousing.

The last tenants moved out in three years ago.

Last month, Hillingdon Council failed in a High Court bid to stop Tesco building a store in Rickmansworth Road, Harefield. Tesco had successfully appealed a refusal.