Objectors fear Newport will be killed by homes and supermarket plans

More than 120 people turned out at a meeting in Newport to have their say on controversial proposals for hundreds of homes and a supermarket. The scheme was announced last month by Telford & Wrekin Council.

Objectors claim the plans for land north of Audley Avenue and either side of Station Road would create "a dead high street with a supermarket at the end".

Developers want to build more than 600 homes, a petrol station and a huge supermarket on the site.

The proposers, Davidsons Developments and St Modwen, said it could create 500 jobs and bring investment into Newport.

But last night Newport mayor Councillor Roy Scammell told a meeting of the Newport Chamber of Commerce that, through various schemes, more than 1,100 homes were being planned for Newport.

He said the developments would mean more than 3,000 more residents over the next 10 to 15 years.

Councillor Scammell said the developments would see a 'continuous building site' in Newport and warned that the town could not cope with such huge expansion.

The meeting at the town's Royal Victoria Hotel heard concerns about extra traffic, a lack of school places, the loss of greenbelt land and the effect of another supermarket – one 50 per cent bigger than Telford's Sainsbury's – on the town.

There were also concerns that the number of houses being put forward did not address local needs.

Carol Murphy, of Station Road, said it was not a case of saying no homes could be built, but that development needs should be agreed by the town council, the town residents and Telford & Wrekin Council.

Chris Degge, of Church Aston, said he felt Telford & Wrekin and the developers were telling rather than asking people in Newport what they needed.

Mr Degge said he feared the result would destroy the town's identity and create a hybrid of Newport and Telford which he called 'Telfport'.

Jonathan Dix, of Station Road, warned that the town would become like Oakengates, Wellington or Market Drayton and be "a dead high street with a supermarket at the end".

And town resident Penny Greenaway said people had chosen to live in Newport because of how the town is now. She said if they wanted to live next to a supermarket they could move somewhere else.

The meeting heard concerns that the developers were applying for a bigger development than was needed, so that they could then reduce the scale of it to show that they were willing to compromise.

Councillor David Adams said if Newport needed another supermarket then a smaller development on the site of the former Royal Mail sorting office in Lower Bar would be a better. He said this would bring people back into the town, rather than draw them to an out of town site.

But David Parker, of the Newport Regeneration Partnership, warned that the clock was ticking. He said a supermarket application was submitted last week and it took around 13 weeks for an application to be determined.

He urged people to write letters of objection to Telford & Wrekin Council based on planning issues rather than emotion. He said individual letters always carried more weight with planners than petitions.