Asda set to lose Marple supermarket battle

MARPLE’S supermarket showdown will be decided at a specially convened planning committee meeting on Friday.

There has been a vocal campaign against plans for an Asda with a petrol station on the edge of the town, but more enthusiasm for an application for a supermarket by Stockport developer Kirkland. Both are around 25,000 sq ft in size.

At present the only supermarket in the town is a Co-operative.

The public mood has been reflected in council documents prepared ahead of the meeting which recommend councillors refuse the Asda plan and allow Kirkland’s.

Both cases will be decided at Friday’s meeting which is being held at a suite at Stockport County Football Club where there is capacity for 210 people.

Kirkland’s plan is to build a supermarket off Trinity Street where a Royal Mail depot currently stands. Asda has teamed up with the sixth form college on Hibbert Lane for a redevelopment scheme that would also involve a new college.

Of Kirkland’s plan, which does not have a supermarket operator signed up, planning officers said: “It is considered that it would not detrimentally impact on the vitality and viability of the district centre, more over it would improve the district centre’s position.”

In contrast the planners said of Asda’s scheme: “It is concluded that the harm to Marple and Hazel Grove district centre’s outweighs any potential benefits/cross funding arguments the college has set out.”

Asda is represented by Deloitte Real Estate while How Planning is handling the case for Kirkland.