Disbelief over claim that new Ludlow supermarket would have 'minimal' impact on town trade

Ludlow's Tesco store, currently the town's biggest supermarket and hence any new store's main rival, isclearly in the town centre and integral to footfall in the town centre, objectors to the new out-of-town scheme have said.

Developers hoping to build a major supermarket and petrol station off the A49 bypass at Ludlow, at Rocks Green, say town centre shopping will not be badly affected by the new store, particularly as new surveys suggest trips to supermarkets such as Tesco, closer to the centre, are "not linked" to footfall in the centre itself.

The report, by Indigo Planning on behalf of Blackfriars Property Group, insists Ludlow's Tesco is "edge of centre" not "town centre", and that people shopping and parking there do not go on to visit smaller town centre shops – so even if Tesco loses trade, it will not harm Ludlow's "vitality and viability".

Since the report was made public on Friday, however, multiple objectors have claimed its surveys and conclusions are flawed.

Ludlow town councillor Timothy Gill said: "The assertion that Tesco in Corve Street is not in the town centre is fatuous and shows a complete lack of local knowledge."

"It is just down form the Bull Ring, the traditional centre of Ludlow."

Miles Wynn Cato, a gallery owner who lives close to Tesco, said: "Nobody who knows Ludlow would seriously claim that Tesco on Corve Street is 'at best' an 'edge-of-centre' shop.

"The primary shopping area of the town is very small and very compact and clearly takes in Corve Street at least as far as Tesco."

"The intention of this new submission is clearly a desperate attempt to establish that there is a precedent for an out-of-town supermarket in Ludlow," he said.

Les Lumsden, a rail and bus campaigner in the town, said the sample of 100 people used in the shopping survey was not random or large enough to be representative of the "actual behaviour" of Ludlow residents in general.

He said: "For example, the assertion that the linked trips are made principally by car must be suspect as the adjacent Galdeford car park, which is near capacity every day, is full of empty cars – the occupants having walked to the shops, facilities, etcetera.

"Walking trips to Tesco or the other supermarkets are not fully considered and this might be an additional loss as people switch to a car trip out of town instead of in town."

However, the Indigo report says independent shops in the town centre are "fulfilling a different need" to the town's supermarkets and "this will continue to be the case regardless of whether the main food shop is undertaken at Tesco or the proposed food store".

It says the survey results show the existing store does "very little to underpin the health of the town centre".

The plans, first submitted in December 2014, have yet to be considered by Shropshire Council.