Survey claims town is against supermarket plan
Friday 18th December 2009, 6:15PM GMT.
More than three quarters of people do not think Oswestry needs another supermarket, a survey has revealed.
Opponents say the latest survey shows the public’s views on the need for a supermarket has changed.
Shropshire Council is set to decide in the new year which one of four rival multi-million supermarket bids should go-ahead.
But a survey carried out by research and marketing experts Skillsmart over the last two months on behalf of Advantage West Midlands and Shropshire Council indicated public support for a new store had waned.
The survey, which is part of a major report entitled The Location Model Town Centre which looks at trading in the market town, spoke to 100 people at random in the town centre.
It found 78 of them did not think Oswestry needed a new supermarket.
Wendy Unwin, from The Gates gift shop in Church Street, said: “The full details of the survey will be released at an event on January 12 at the Wynnstay Hotel but the finding on the supermarket question is interesting.
“People are going off the idea of big stores. More and more of our customers are coming here from Wrexham because they don’t like how the big stores have changed their town.”
Mark Evans from campaign group Oswestry 21 said: “People are not sure about the need for another store because Morrisons has opened and they have seen what has happened to Wrexham and Ellesmere.”
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I hate to pop this bubble – but planning is a legal function which has to be based on the planning issues – and public opinion is NOT a planning issue, if it was then Sainsbury’s would never have been allowed to come to Oswestry as everyone was against that – and Morrisons – which was previously Summerfield and Gateway before that would not have been allowed as no-one wanted that either. Aldo would not have come, and I assume that when in the 1960′s the Cattle market was moved from the centre of the Town to the edge many of the same comments would have been made about the way the proposal would “kill” the town.
In the 1800′s most of the loocal landowners did not want the railway to come to Oswestry, so the Chester-Shrewsbury line went to Gobowen and all we got was a spur. If people had had a little vision and faith, then Oswestry would have a direct rail connection to Chester, Shrewsbury and London now.
You either move with the times or end up on a brach line to nowhere.
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Are you saying people shouldn’t bother to speak up? Lack of local support for a development scheme will not put an end to it, but coupled with a lack of proven need it might just add weight to the possibility that none of the proposals on the table for Oswestry at the moment are right. No one should discourage people from voicing their opinions. Ever.
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