A planning application has been made this week to Peterborough City Council on behalf of TH Pboro Limited, for a new drive-thru and sitting-in coffee shop at the former Toys R Us car park on Bourges Boulevard - to be occupied by popular Canadian coffee joint Tim Hortons.

Based in Toronto, Tim Hortons serves coffee, doughnuts, and other fast food items. It is Canada's largest quick-service restaurant chain, with almost 5,000 restaurants in 14 countries as of 2019.

The application for the site, just off Bourges Boulevard, forms the southern part of a large car park originally developed to serve a Toys ‘R’ Us store, although the store has recently been sub-divided and refurbished to accommodate an Iceland Food Warehouse and Home Bargains.

The applicant further states: “Neither planning application, however, included the current application site. As such the land does not form part of the car parking for the two retail stores currently trading and there remains ample car parking on site to accommodate all three uses.”

The application request made by Williams Gallagher Town Planning Solutions Ltd is for a new illuminated sign to be placed on the premises alongside the construction of a 311 sq. m drive-thru coffee shop and restaurant with associated drive thru lane and cycle parking spaces, one accessible car parking space; and associated hard and soft landscaping.

This would be the first Tim Hortons store in Cambridgeshire, with the closest existing Tim Hortons store being in Northampton.

If approved, the application estimates it will create around 50 full and part time jobs in the city.

The decision on the application is pending.