PROPOSALS for a Tesco supermarket in Callington will go before planners next Tuesday (March 24) with a recommendation for approval.

The plan for the 4,000sq metre store in Tavistock Road, which has received a lot of local support, includes a petrol station, something the town is currently without, and will create up to 180 jobs.

It has been supported by Callington Town Council which has asked for a pedestrian crossing at the Saltash Road/Tavistock Road junction to be part of a legal agreement to allow easy pedestrian access to the store.

Town Cllr Chris Thomas has been an ardent campaigner to get one of the four big-named supermarkets in the town. He said: 'Callington is dying, and it has been since the cattle market shut down 30 years ago. At one time we had five or six butchers, shoe shops, clothes shops and three bakers. Most of these have gone because people have gone to other towns which have big supermarkets.

'Eighty per cent of people who live in Callington do not shop here and if we can get back just 20% of them it will have an impact on the town centre. People will stay within the town and consequently spend some time walking around it and using the other shops.'

The store proposed is around threequarters the size of the Launceston store and would include an in-store bakery and delicatessen. Town councillors have asked for limitations on the number of white goods on sale and that no newspapers be sold to lessen the effect on town traders.

Nearly 90% of residents who returned feedback forms at a public exhibition last autumn supported the proposals for the store.