PLANS for a controversial superstore in Llangollen have now been officially submitted.
The multi-million pound investment by Dobson and Crowther, Llangollen’s largest employer, would see a 20,000 square foot supermarket and car park built on their existing site by the town’s riverside.
The company also hopes to build a new 45,000 sq ft envelope manufacturing facility by the A5 at Cilmedw.
When the plans were first discussed last November they divided the town with opponents arguing the supermarket plans could affect high street trade and supporters saying it would secure jobs and create new ones.
A report by developers J. Ross Developments, included in the planning application, says a public consultation event held last November showed 65 per cent of respondents were supportive of the scheme.
It states: “The vast majority of attendees expressed support for the scheme proposals because they allow retention of 110 jobs at Dobson and Crowther and the creation of up to 130 retail store jobs for local people.
“They allow the major employer to stay in the town in better premises, provide more choice for retail shopping, with more competition to help reduce what they perceived as high prices at existing food stores, access to riverside walkway and additional car parking for the town.”
But opposition group Keep Llangollen Special have vowed to continue to fight the application.
A spokesman for the campaign said the store would be further away than existing shops in the town for most of Llangollen’s residents.
“From the proposed site to Castle Street is over a mile round trip,” he said. “Very few indeed could reach it on foot, it would be a vehicle-only supermarket.
He added: “The evidence is overwhelming that edge-of-town superstores kill high streets.
“We will fight tooth and nail to keep Llangollen alive and thriving.”
A spokesman for Denbighshire County Council confirmed it has now received separate planning applications to develop a new retail foodstore on the Dobson and Crowther factory site at Berwyn Street, and to relocate the print works business in a new purpose built factory on land at Cilmedw, on the outskirts of Llangollen.
He said: “The applications are submitted by agents acting on behalf of J. Ross Developments, of Oswestry, and are accompanied by a volume of supporting information including Environmental Impact Assessments.
“The new foodstore would be served by separate accesses onto the A5, one into a customer car park and one into the proposed service area. The store operator is not stated in the application.”
Dobson and Crowther, which moved to the town in 1946, is the UK’s largest manufacturer of litho printed envelopes, producing in excess of 600 million envelopes and associated packaging products each year.
The plans are available for inspection online at www.denbighshire.gov.uk and in hard copy form at Llangollen Library and at the Planning office in Denbigh.