PLANNERS will decide on Tuesday whether to accept two new controversial supermarket developments on the edge of Tavistock.

Plans for a Sainsbury's store and a Lidl store, both in the Plymouth Road area, will be discussed at a meeting of West Devon Borough Council's planning committee at Hatherleigh Community Centre at 10am.

The schemes have both been strongly opposed by Tavistock Chamber of Commerce because it fears the stores would 'suck the life out of the town centre'.

The Sainsbury's application for a 3,072 sq metre store, including a coffee shop, 339 car parking spaces, a petrol station, plus 17 business units, an office building and additional car parking will go before the committee with a recommendation for refusal from planning officers.

Officers feel the proposal would result in a significant loss of employment land which the site at Brook Farm was designated for and that it would be detrimental to the vitality and viability of the town centre.

Some 366 letters objecting to the mixed-use scheme have been sent to the planning authority.

The smaller store proposed by Lidl, which would total 1,322 sq metres and provide 70 car parking spaces, has been recommended for approval by planning officers — they do not feel the store will have a significant adverse affect on the town centre due to its scale, the nature of the business and the offer by Lidl not to sell various products, namely tobacco and lottery tickets or have a fresh meat or fish counter or delicatessen.

The proposal by Lidl is for a site which already has retail use and was home to the former McDonald's, piano centre and Refurnish.

Chairman of Tavistock's chamber of commerce and founder of the Brook Campaign Group Nigel Eadie said because of delays in getting the supermarket applications to the committee — the target date to determine the Sainsbury plan was July — the critical issues seemed to have slipped off people's radar.

'It would be a pity if these supermarkets slipped under the wire because of people's complacency at this late and crucial stage,' he said.

'Our cause has never been anti-supermarket but merely pro-town centre. In fact, we would welcome both stores with open arms if they weren't located out of the town centre.

'But the truth is, because of their location and size they are likely to suck the life out of the town centre in the same way that other similar stores have done to small market towns throughout the country.'

Planning consultant Stephen Gill, a former head of planning at West Devon Borough Council, has been employed by the campaign group to the fight its case and will speak against both applications at the meeting next week.

He said both supermarkets admitted to negative impacts on the town centre of up to 15%, but on analysis of the calculations this was felt to be a severe underestimate. Any additional negative impact on the town centre at this time of economic downturn was going to hit the small independent retailers very hard indeed, he said.

Development executive for Lidl Oliver McGuinness was delighted officers had recommended the application for approval, but it was up to the planning committee to make the final decision.

'We have submitted all the normal traffic, flood and retail assessments and these are all deemed to be accepted by the officers and their consultants,' he said.

Jamie Baker, regional development executive for Sainsbury's, said: 'We believe Sainsbury's range of goods — focused primarily on food and including organic and carefully sourced produce — is well suited to a town such as Tavistock which has such a reputation for good food.

'Furthermore, when we carried out our public consultation in the town, over 60 per cent of local people told us that Tavistock was missing a quality supermarket which could provide for the average family weekly shop.'

He said Sainsbury's also believed that a store in Tavistock would reduce the 'leakage' of trade to other centres such as Plymouth and Okehampton and provide more opportunity for local shoppers to spend their money in Tavistock.