We all know Shropshire is a wonderful part of the world, writes Dave Morris.

In a journalistic career of nearly 42 years I have never worked outside of the county.

But boy can it be an infuriating place.

And the Oswestry ‘store wars’ saga proves it.

When I came to live and work in Oswestry back in 1973, the town was still struggling to pick itself up from some economic hammer blows from the previous decade.

It had, for example, ceased to be railway centre, Ifton Colliery at nearby St Martins had closed, and the town had found itself at the centre of a major foot and mouth outbreak.

On top of this it was looking to the closure of the Park Hall Army Camp, which at its peak had been home to nearly 2,000 ‘boy soldiers’. It finally closed in 1975.

But Oswestry showed tremendous resilience and moved forward. Its fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the years but its population has continued to grow and it’s Shropshire’s third largest town.

There is now a belief that it needs a new store, though this is strongly disputed by many.

Four different applications to build a store were lodged with county planners.

We had expected, rather naively, that the matter would be settled this week.

But we had forgotten that this is Shropshire.

The bottom line is that the Shropshire Council planning committee failed to decide whether Oswestry should have a new supermarket, despite the huge amount of time spent on research and consultation. The first application was received by the former Oswestry Borough Council on October 7, 2008.

So what happens now? And does the town in fact need a store?

Well it’s pretty obvious that things are going to rumble on and on.

One application – supported by council officers – was overwhelmingly rejected by the planning committee, a move which will almost certainly trigger an appeal by the developers.

The other three applications, which it is claimed don’t satisfy the test for protecting the vitality of a town centre, still remain on the table after councillors demanded a new detailed appraisal of the proposals.

What a mess!

But back to the question of whether or not Oswestry needs a new multi-million pound store.

In my personal opinion, I don’t think it does.

Oswestry is fortunate that it still retains many individual, family-owned shops and businesses which are one of the bedrocks on which the town is built.

A new store, whether in the town centre or on the edge of town, is going to be damaging to them.

And planning officers themselves say in a lengthy report that there is a “lack of urgent need for new convenience floor space” in Oswestry.

Will we see a new store? I believe so.

Only one of the applications has a named operator. It happens to be Tesco – a company that never seems to gives up.