A FINAL decision on permission for a Christchurch shopping village will be made early this year.

A planning application for a change of use at Christchurch Emporium was submitted in 2015 when the venue first opened for business.

But now, nearly two years later, the indoor retail outlet still doesn't have formal permission.

And the council claim there is still outstanding information to be submitted.

Jane Lynch, development management manager at the council said: "We are in discussions with both Christchurch Emporium Ltd, who were the original applicant, and Christchurch Shopping Village Ltd, the new current operating company.

"We recognise that the decision regarding the application for change of use at The Christchurch Emporium has taken longer than anticipated, but we are hoping a decision will be made in early 2017, once all outstanding information has been received."

In 2015, planning officers recommended the proposal for the old Mostyn’s factory in Bridge Street should not get planning permission, pending further information.

At the time, planning officers said they were awaiting more information from the agent on the change of use proposal.

Last year, the council said they were still waiting for the required information, with no change to the recommendation to refuse.

At the time, a spokesperson for Christchurch council said the Retail Impact Assessment was “inadequate”, and more information had been requested.

Christchurch Emporium opened in April 2015, and claims to have more than 140 sellers of items including antiques, furniture, toys, decorations and clothes.

The proposal for the former Mostyn’s workshop is applying for a change of use to retail, cafe, office and conference space.

At the time the application was predicted to take around 13 weeks to complete.

It is not the first delay the scheme has had, with a long wait for initial validation documents from the applicant, which prevented it being published on the council’s website.

The Emporium had a turbulent start, after a dispute between its two directors led one to seek advice from insolvency experts.

The Daily Echo requested a comment from the owners and planning agent for the Emporium but received no response at the time of going to press.