Tesco ready to woo residents in drive to build bigger store

Senior staff from the supermarket chain will be in the town next week to outline blueprints for the new 40m store to the public.

Representatives from the company will also be at Scarborough Town Hall today when councillors will question them about the proposals.

Tesco's plans for a new store in Whitby were thrown out in the summer during a marathon planning meeting of Scarborough Borough Council which was attended by more than 400 people.

More than 3,700 campaigners petitioned against the plans which would have seen a supermarket built on land at High Stakesby under a deal with the Sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete, based at Sneaton Castle.

Concerns were raised over the impact the development would have on Whitby, causing more traffic tailbacks on already-congested streets as well as impinging on the port's famous landscape.

A company spokesman stressed that the Scarborough application was "a completely different situation" to the saga in Whitby as it is earmarked for a brownfield site on the former St Mary's Hospital site in Dean Road.

However, the major public consultation in Scarborough is attempting to allay concerns from independent traders that their businesses will be undermined by the arrival of a new superstore.

The Dean Road site would allow Tesco 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.

Tesco's corporate affairs manager, Matthew Magee, said: "Our Westwood store has been very popular and busy since its opening, but our customers have told us that they want to see more.

"Our new environmental stores are really pleasant to shop in and offer a greater range of the products our customers like. It's also a chance to clean up this important site for Scarborough."

The proposed Dean Road store is expected to create more than 350 new jobs on top of the existing 200-strong workforce at the Westwood outlet, which would transfer to the new site.

Mr Magee stressed that the new store would help to boost enterprise as it would provide an added incentive for Scarborough's residents to shop in the town rather than travel elsewhere.

The company will be holding a public exhibition about its plans for Dean Road at the Oasis Family Centre in Castle Road from Thursday until Saturday next week. Members of the public will have the opportunity to look at drawings and artists' impressions and question Tesco representative.

The Town Hall meeting when councillors will question Tesco officials about the plans will begin at 9.30am today, and it is open to the public.

However, a council spokesman stressed that members of the public would not be not permitted to speak or ask questions .

A formal planning application for the proposed supermarket on Dean Road is expected to be submitted by the start of next year.

However, Tesco confirmed yesterday that an exact timescale for when the store could open if it were granted permission had yet to be finalised.

St Mary's Hospital, a former work house which became a maternity hospital and later a psychiatric unit, closed in the 1990s and was demolished ready to build Scarborough's new police station.

However, the deal faltered as it fell foul of Home Office guidelines on the procurement of major public service contracts. The hospital site was subsequently laid out as a "temporary" car park, which it has been ever since.

Last year, councillors agreed in principle to the disposal of council land at Dean Road. A development brief was prepared for the site and approved by the full council.