Town store plans are shelved

Plans for a new clothing store which would have created dozens of jobs for Whitchurch have been shelved, bosses have said.

Clothing giant Peacocks today said it no longer had plans to open a store in the town.

Bosses at the firm confirmed it was looking into opening a store in the town in September last year, with a view to having the store open sometime this year.

But Laura Dudley, a spokeswoman for Peacocks, today said there were no plans for any new Shropshire stores.

"There has not been anything put on our plan for our store opening so I doubt it's going ahead because if it's not on for this year it's not on the plan. We are opening stores elsewhere so it was probably only ever talks and they decided against it," she said.

Michael Bate, from the town's Chamber of Trade, said the news would come as a blow to traders who wanted to get empty shop units filled fast.

"Who is going to want to open a new shop in this climate? Until the housing market gets kick-started in some way we wont get an increase in population and it will remain difficult for the shopping market," he said.

"It's not all doom and gloom, there are not that many empty shops. It's going to be difficult in these times to get people to relocate but the smaller shops seem to be surviving better than the bigger ones."