PASSING police officers spotted a fire at an industrial unit in Alperton that is earmarked for replacement by a Lidl discount supermarket in a mixed-use development.

They raised the alarm at 4.20am today after noticing a blaze had broken out in the storage area of the single-storey business at the rear of Minavil House in Ealing Road, near the junction with Bridgewater Road.

Twenty firefighters from Wembley and Ealing fire stations had to cool one cyclinder while dousing the flames. Police closed the road at the junction of Bridgewater Road and Manor Farm Road, and Ealing Road and Glacier Way, only reopening them at 7.50am.

A spokesman for Lidl said the building had not been damaged and that junk piled up on a land between the industrial unit and the Grand Union Canal at the back of the office block had caught fire.

The German budget grocery chain has planning permission to demolish Minavil House and build an 11-storey block with its supermarket on the ground floor, office space on the first floor and 55 flats above that.