Shrewsbury Town match day strategy plea over Lidl supermarket plan

James Watkin, Shropshire Council's public protection officer, has made the suggestion for the proposed Lidl store off Oteley Road.

The application is currently being processed by the council's planning department, and Mr Watkin had been asked to review a "match day management plan", which is part of the proposal. He has suggested that Lidl could provide a separate access to the football ground from Oteley Road.

Mr Watkin said: "The proposals to provide five additional stewards on match days to manage pedestrian and vehicular movement are satisfactory.

"However a far better solution has been suggested to the developers which would be to provide a separate pedestrian access to the football ground from Oteley Road along the western edge of the proposal site."

In his submission Mr Watkin has also asked the council to restrict deliveries on match days. He said: "I would request a condition be applied requiring there no deliveries to the Lidl store in the two hours before a match kicks off and for one hour after the expected finish time."

JMP Consultants, on behalf of Lidl, had previously produced a match day management plan as part of the application.

The document outlined that extra stewards would be present to help on match days.

It stated: "Pedestrian access through the Lidl site will be carefully managed to ensure that any potential conflicts between match day attendees and vehicles accessing the Lidl store is minimised.

"Shrewsbury Town Football Club already implements stewarding arrangements on match days including a presence at the car park entry point from the stadium access road.

"With the Lidl store in operation, it is proposed to add extra stewarding resource to the car park entry point and at the additional pedestrian access points for the food store to assist with traffic flow on match days to both sites and to direct Shrewsbury Town Football Club pedestrian movements away from accessing through the Lidl car park."

Lidl has also said that a limit of 90 minutes will be in operation at the store's car park at all time.

Earlier this month Waitrose, which is currently stalling on plans to build a supermarket on Oteley Road, wrote to Shropshire Council asking it to reject Lidl's application.

In a letter to Shropshire Council, Ken Harrison, acquisitions and development manager at Waitrose, said: "I am still unable to say when the new store will be built, or indeed whether we would want to vary the application to improve its viability.

"But what is certain is that if the council approves the Lidl planning application, as a result of the impact it will have on our trade, it will seriously jeopardise the chances of this store happening."

Mr Harrison said that Waitrose is considering whether it should build a smaller store on the site, or "bring it forward for alternative development".