MP warns Tesco plan ‘likely to go ahead’

Mr Goodwill was speaking ahead of tomorrow’s protest, organised by the Scarborough Town Against Tesco Store (STATS) and timed to coincide with a meeting of Scarborough Council’s planning committee.

The group, which has had 5,000 leaflets printed and collected more than 2,500 names on a petition against the proposals, claims the £40m development would have a major impact on the town’s roads networks as well as the existing retail sector.

But with revised plans expected to be submitted later this month, Mr Goodwill told the Yorkshire Post he believes they will be given the go-ahead if the traffic and parking concerns are addressed.

“It is on a brown field site in the middle of town”, he said.

“As long as the traffic and parking situations are adequately increased, it will be difficult, I suspect, to come up with enough grounds to reject it which are robust enough to defend at a planning inquiry.

“I’m very optimistic that Tesco will listen to people’s concerns and will have modified its submission.”

The Tesco plans centre on a site in Dean Road which would allow the company to create an outlet covering 65,000 sq ft – more than three times the size of the firm’s existing Westwood store in the town, which it would replace.

Mr Goodwill said a social club for Scarborough Council workers stands on the site and a new one will have to be found.

The protest march will begin at Dean Road at 12pm before ending up at the Town Hall, on Nicholas Street.

Tesco claims the plans, which are expected to go before planning committee in the summer, would create 350 new jobs and revitalise a neglected area of town.