Morrisons Oswestry town centre site going up for sale
Oswestry's town centre Morrisons store is to be put on the market after the store giant was given permission to remove the clause limiting it to a supermarket.
Contractors are clearing the land off Shrewsbury Road that has been earmarked for Morrisons' new superstore for the past five years, in readiness for building work to begin.
Now the company has revealed that Shropshire Council has given the go-ahead for the removal of the clause on its current site at the bottom of Beatrice Street/Oswald Road which says that retailing must be 90 per cent food, drink, tobacco or household cleaning products.
It will now be marketed for general retail.
The company's application to the planning authority said: “Following the granting of planning permission for a new Morrisons supermarket at the former Smithfield Livestock Market in December 2018, Morrisons will be relocating from their site at Station Road in due course, and the vacant unit will be marketed to other retailers.
“Condition two as it stands, is very restrictive as to the potential retailers. The removal of this condition will ensure that the unit remains attractive to the market and occupied into the future, in turn leading to the vitality and viability of Oswestry being maintained and enhanced.”
Demolished
The building has been a supermarket since 1984, when it opened as Safeway. It was taken over by Morrisons in 2009.
Morrisons leases the land off Shrewsbury Road from Oswestry Town Council, after a multi-milllion pound project which saw the livestock market demolished and rebuilt on a section of the site.
The new supermarket was to have been part of a major scheme which would also have included a cinema. However, when Cineworld pulled out of the deal the development of the land was mothballed until those involved could put forward the smaller scheme. The seven acres of spare land it now being marketed to other retailers.
Creating a new access into the livestock market site, one of the first steps to starting work on the store, has seen temporary traffic lights go up on Shrewsbury Road, one of the main routes into Oswestry.
Morrisons says the scheme will bring 60 new jobs to the town in addition to the 100 in the company already employed by Morrisons.
It say an opening date for the new store has not yet been decided.
