New additions revealed for Oswestry business park
The third phase of a major development in Shropshire will get under way after developers announced plans for a new rural supplies store and a diner.
Oswestry Gateway business park, on the eastern edge of the town, already has a KFC, Starbucks, Table Table public house and Premier Inn hotel.
Now J Ross Developments Ltd, which is part of The Pickstock Group, has announced that rural supply chain Countrywide and American-style OK Diner will be coming to the business park in the next stage of work.
Plans for the Countrywide store, which will be built next to KFC, have been submitted to Shropshire Council planners for approval.
A spokesman for J Ross Developments Ltd said the new shop will create 17 jobs – 12 full-time and five part-time.
He added that the development of the Countryside and OK Diner sites will provide funding to allow the rest of the site to be developed.
A spokeswoman for Countrywide Stores said: "We're in the process of looking at a number of locations and have a number of planning applications in.
"Agriculture and retail are not easy industries to be in, but we're working towards a three-year plan to move into areas where we don't already have a presence.
"We've already got projects under way this year so we won't be opening any other new stores until after Christmas at the earliest."
OK Diner did not wish to comment.
The first phase of the £3.36million development began in 2008, when the public house and hotel were built.
The second phase saw the other end of the site developed with the fast food restaurant and coffee shop opened last year.
Once completed, the developers plan to include all types of businesses, with trade counters, car sales, child care facilities, offices, restaurants and light industrial companies all taking up plots.
The growth of the development is in marked contrast to the neighbouring site which was formerly the town's cattle market.
A Morrisons supermarket, a five-screen Cineworld cinema and Frankie & Bennys and McDonalds restaurants have been lined up to form a part of the £45 million redevelopment of the Smithfield site.
Outline planning permission for the leisure pound complex was granted five years ago and there were hopes that building could begin in 2013.
But no work has been done on the site since the land was cleared and fenced off.
Morrisons says it is still committed to building a new superstore.
