Perfect for a small M&S Food, fingers crossed. I can understand the residents annoyed that they decided to place the two buildings at the back of the site, and certainly having parking fronting the road where the more historic building was isn’t ideal, but at least they altered the plans to provide some activity and retail fronting market street. With the right well-known name it could have a great effect, book-ending the main shopping area between here and Asda and drawing footfall between the two... and finally some choice.
I did run through the "usual" suspects in my mind. Sainsburys and Tesco are obvious candidates. As is M&S. But with Sainsburys buying Asda, that seems less likely. Co-op would be another. But there's one here already. Not that that necessarily means anything. I used to live somewhere where Tesco bought a much loved pub, closed it down and turned it into a Tesco Express. The nearest Tesco Express to that? A mere 100m away...
We will see. I could be reading too much into the fact that there's a cash machine in the plans. But quite often these things are tied up ahead of the planning application being granted. Some years ago I lived near another pub that was sold and shut down. The owners put in planning permission to convert the garden for housing, rebuild the upstairs for flats but keep the ground floor as a "pub/bar". And within days of planning permission being granted it was announced Sainsburys would be moving in. There'd never been any intention to keep it as a pub. It had been a done deal from day one. Anyway, that's by the by, but it shows the planning and preparation that goes into these kind of developments.
