Supermarkets vie for Swinton space
PLANS to transform Swinton’s rundown shopping centre into a new 72,000 sq ft ASDA supermarket are set to be heard this week alongside proposals to add a 12,000 sq ft extension onto the adjacent Morrisons supermarket.
The centre has been in the hands of managing agents GVA as LPA receivers on behalf of lender West Bromwich Building Society since the failure of its previous owner several years ago. However, Asda now proposes a partial demolition of the centre and of ten commercial/residential units and a former Government Office building.
The proposed store would be built on stilts with almost 350 parking spaces housed underneath. It will contain a sales area of 35,000 sq ft and could help to create up to 250 jobs. New public realm space is also planned.
Meanwhile, Morrisons plans to add a further 12,000 sq ft of floorspace onto its existing 50,000 sq ft superstore, which will include a new entrance lobby.
Some 82 objections have been raised by residents to the Asda schemes, citing a varied list of reasons including the loss of local businesses, no need for extra supermarket space, increased noise, pollution and a likely detrimental impact on parking. Part of the site also contains a former Unitarian church graveyard, although the church itself was demolished in the 1980s.
Asda is proposing to move the graves to plots at a nearby cemetery, but campaigners have called for the graveyard to be preserved. More than 300 bodies are buried within the graveyard, including many victims from a mining disaster at the nearby Clifton Hall Colliery in 1885. Two objections regarding increased traffic and parking problems were also received to the Morrisons scheme.
Council offers have recommended that both schemes are approved – despite the fact there is already a surplus of retail capacity in the city, and that the combined space proposed outweighs the 2,500 sq m capacity limit suggested within its own core strategy.
Planning officers argued that the scale of development “is considered appropriate for a centre located at the top of the retail hierarchy”, and that the extra space was unlikely to have a detrimental impact on nearby towns.
They also argue that Asda’s proposal would “encourage new investment in an existing town centre which is of an appropriate scale”.
