Owners of a prominent canalside pub and restaurant in Sale want to replace its outside bar and pizza outlet so they can expand.

Middleton-based brewery J W Lees, which owns The Bridge Inn on Dane Road has submitted a planning application for the work to Trafford Council.

The work includes a new outside bar/pizza dispensing hut comprising of two shipping containers 40ft and 10ft in length which will be joined together in the existing beer garden.

If approved, new festoon lighting and posts and a bin store will be also be installed.

J W Lees says the location of the shipping containers on the existing car park adjacent to homes on nearby Brindley Avenue, will ‘provide greater sound screening’ for the residents.

“Additional planting/hedges will be installed within landscaped borders along the boundary with neighbouring houses,” a design and access statement on the Trafford planning portal says.

“It is considered there will be no direct impact on the occupiers of these properties [on Brindley Avenue].”

It goes on: “The proposal provides minimal social impact. However, it should be noted that the proposed development will enrich and improve the current facilities which are currently used as a local hub and meeting place for local groups and other such institutes.

“It is hoped the proposed development will have an economic impact on the existing public house business with increased custom and new visitors to the local area.

“The external appearance of the replacement outside bar/pizza dispense hut, beer garden and bin store enclosure will be carried out using materials that are sympathetic to the existing pub building.”

The pub stands on the banks of the Bridgewater Canal and is near to the Dane Road Metrolink stop.