As the Cotswolds Designer Outlet moves closer to completion, plans have been submitted for a 607-space car park for the centre.

Phase 1 of the highly anticipated new retail and food and beverage destination in Tewkesbury will open in June next year with a temporary car park. That car will be the site of Phase 2 of the development.

Now developer Robert Hitchins Ltd has submitted plans to Tewkesbury Borough Council for a surface level car park and single storey decked car park, totalling 607 spaces, with associated access, infrastructure works and landscaping.

The proposed deck car park will have three stair cores with one lift. The 607 spaces will include 257 surface spaces (including 11 accessible), 171 ground deck spaces and 179 upper deck spaces.

The site, close to the Cotswolds Designer Outlet development, is mostly equine grazing fields. There are six buildings on the site - a residential property, three small stables, a small barn and a small outhouse. These are all set to be demolished to make way for the car park.

Initially, plans were for a five-storey car park, but architect Roberts Limbrick has come up with a proposal which has minimal visual impact on the surrounding area and is partly camouflaged by a considered landscape scheme.

In the Design and Access Statement to accompany the planning application, Roberts Limbrick said: "The key concerns for the design were to create a car park design that would be in keeping with the rural surroundings, and sit well within its context without imposing on the landscape. This informed the decision to have the surface level and a single deck car park to achieve the parking density required and keep the building height low."

None of the elements of the proposed car park are visible from Fiddington Lane or rise above the main tree line running alongside the road. The overall height of the decked car park is only 5.5m, with the stair cores, which are set back from the façade, reaching 6.6m.

Phase 1 of Cotswolds Designer Outlet will offer 136,000 sq ft of space for 56 fashion, sport, lifestyle and food and drink companies. More than 80% of retail space is already committed.

Phase 2 will see around another 40 units created, totalling 50,000sq ft.