Superstore plans for retail park could bring 400 jobs to district

A major operator is being lined up for the development, at the junction of Holderness Road with Mount Pleasant in east Hull.

Barnsley-based Dransfield Properties, which developed the Mount Pleasant retail park opposite with its large Asda store, is behind the proposals.

Dransfield has claimed that people who attended a public exhibition at the weekend were supportive.

The development will include eight retail units fronting Holderness Road – now a boarded up row of shops and businesses, apart from two which are still operating.

The company claims that the scheme, which will be submitted to Hull Council later this summer, will employ 400 people.

A spokeswoman for Dransfield said: "We were extremely pleased with the feedback we received and everyone we spoke to was very positive about the proposals."

The East Yorkshire branch chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, Martin Cuthbert, welcomed the addition of the retail units, but said they were expensive as a rule and not everyone could afford them.

He added: "It just seems like the Big Four are dominating everything.

"There's the benefit of a few jobs and that's about it – the pound doesn't go about in Hull because it goes to wherever the head office is. We need a diversity of shopping in to attract people –- not just what you get in the next city."

As well as a 92,500 sq ft supermarket there will be a petrol station and 600 car parking spaces.

Most of the shops in the row fronting Holderness Road have been acquired by Dransfield apart from Pledge Pawnbrokers and Kestrel Kebabs.

Paull Ulliott, of Pledge Pawnbrokers, which has just celebrated its 20th anniversary, said nobody from Dransfield had been to speak to him for years.

He said: "We aren't bothered about moving. We are a successful business."

A little further up the road, however, David Pacey, who owns clothing repair shop News Sew Soon, said: "Anything that brings in more business, I'm up for it."

Shehmaz Javed, who has a women's clothing shop, said she had not seen any new business since the Asda store opened, as everyone went there by car.

But she was not 't concerned by new competition.

The managing director of Mount Pleasant Urban Regeneration and Dransfield Properties, Mark Dransfield said: "We are working with a number of businesses in the area to deliver this exciting new retail development which is on a key site in the city.

"There is a long held aspiration for a new development on this site in East Hull and we will be listening to the views of the residents and local stakeholders."

Councillors were recently urged to refuse an application for a third Tesco in west Hull.

The store on the former Tradex site would have been have nearly the same floorspace as all the existing shops on Anlaby Road and was just down the road from a Tesco Express.

Planners are recommending refusal on the grounds that it would have an adverse effect on nearby Hessle Road.