New jobs look set to be created as a drive-through Starbucks coffee shop is built on part of a supermarket's car park.

Plans for a new drive-through outlet of the coffee giant – to be located on part of the Asda car park on Belvedere Road in Lowestoft – have been given the go-ahead.

The Starbucks development is set to create 15 full-time jobs and five part-time positions, according to the applicants, with 'additional employment' likely to be created during the construction phase.

The plans, which centre around a drive-through outlet of the coffee giant, with associated car parking spaces and signage, were approved by Waveney District Council last Friday, March 1.

In lodging the plans, a design and access statement, produced by Dovetail Architects Ltd on behalf of Burney Midlands Ltd, said: 'The proposal is for a Starbucks building to be constructed in the southern section of the Asda car park.

'The proposed site is designed in such a way that it will have frontage towards Belvedere Road.'

The proposed development of the site, which measures around 1243sq m, would see a 'single-storey high, new built commercial unit' created, with the entrance to the building facing towards the Asda store.

In recommending that the application be permitted subject to a number of conditions, a Waveney District council case officer report said: 'The application involves the loss of 48 parking spaces used for the Asda superstore, and will provide eight dedicated spaces for customers (including two disabled spaces), and three bike stands.'

And after no objections were raised, the report concludes: 'The proposed town centre uses have been sequentially tested and no sequentially preferable sites have been identified as being suitable or available and therefore capable of accommodating the proposed development.

'The layout of the site and the design of its buildings have responded to the requirements of the intended operators and deliver a development which is considered acceptable.

'The proposed development is considered in general conformity with the Development Plan and is beneficial to economic development in its own right for which there is a national presumption in favour.'