Fears new stores will hit Oswestry town centre trade
Building three new supermarkets in one town would have a huge impact on trade and traffic congestion, business chiefs have warned.
Members of Oswestry Chamber of Commerce believe the plans for a Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl could affect town centre traders.
They have also been told an agreement to run a free shuttle bus from the Morrisons store planned on the edge-of-town Smithfield site to the town centre has been dropped due to unexpected costs of building a new substation to serve the area.
Money will instead be invested in the town's bus services, the meeting heard.
Morrisons has already been given consent to build a supermarket as part of the town's multi-million pound Smithfield livestock market redevelopment on Shrewsbury Road which will also see the building of a multi-screen cinema and restaurants.
Discount chains Aldi and Lidl have in recent months lodged bids for stores in the town.
Aldi hopes to open a store on land between the Smithfield site and the town's Fairholme care home, while Lidl is planning to open a store on the site of the current JT Hughes car showroom on Victoria Road.
Some chamber members said they had reservations about the effect the supermarkets would have on the vibrancy of the town centre.
Martin Anderson said: "I have got huge concerns about the impact on the town centre and the traffic situation."
Chamber chairman Heather Noble said she was concerned about how the Lidl store, should it go ahead, would affect traffic.
She said: "I know there are concerns.
"It is already a bad part of the town in terms of traffic."
The chamber was told that despite some of the major supermarket chains revising their programme of new store openings because of economic pressures, the Morrisons store at the Smithfield site does look like it is still going ahead.
Karen Townend, Shropshire Council's principal planning officer, said developers were making progress on the Morrisons store.
She said that the developers had done quite a lot of work at the livestock market.
"The last I heard was that Morrisons were committed to coming," she added.
"At the moment they are spending money on that site already.
"As far as I am concerned Morrisons are coming, they are building and they will build the cinema."
Chamber members said at Wednesday's meeting they wanted to be kept updated on the progress of the supermarket plans.
