HOPES for a northern relief road to take traffic out of Wellington town centre and link the B3187 Chelston road to Tonedale appear to have been dashed.

An application by Lidl to build a supermarket outside the town has revealed the loss of an important part of the ‘planning jigsaw’ needed for the new road to happen.

Town councillor John Thorne this week described the news as a ‘hammer blow’ for plans to improve the town centre environment.

Cllr Thorne said: “I think most people would agree that we have far too many cars, vans and lorries driving through the middle of town.

“We need to try to reduce the numbers to make the centre of our town a more pleasant environment for residents and create room for projects such as the suggested ‘town square’.

“If we are going to put on street entertainments, food markets and other activities then it is not good to have lots of vehicles driving past at the same time.”

The northern relief road plan was put together eight years ago when the former Deane council granted planning permission for a housing development at Longforth Farm.

The legal agreement included a spine road through the new estate which would initially take lorries and staff to the Relyon and Pritex sites, and eventually link to Tonedale.

The long-term planning strategy was for the factories and neighbouring cosmetics and aerosols manufacturer Swallowfield to relocate to land beside the Cades Farm estate roundabout.

At the time, bedding manufacturer Relyon and acoustics engineers Pritex were both owned by South African conglomerate Steinhoff International Holdings.

Recently, both Relyon and Pritex have been sold to different owners, while Swallowfield has also been taken under new ownership.

Now, Relyon managing director Alan Chapman has admitted in an email to Lidl acquisitions manager Rachel Brady-Cooper there were no plans for his company to relocate.

Mr Chapman was responding to a query from Ms Brady-Cooper after Lidl declared it wanted instead to put a supermarket on the Longforth Farm site allocated for the relocation.

In the correspondence, which has been revealed in planning documents, Mr Chapman said: “I do not believe that the business will be in a position to relocate to that site and therefore I am prepared to declare that we have no further interest in the site.”

The documents also showed Ms Brady-Cooper similarly wrote to directors of Swallowfield to ask for confirmation of their continued interest in relocating to Longforth Farm.

In a final letter to Swallowfield she said: “In the six weeks since this correspondence was sent, I note I have not received a response. Based on this, I can only conclude that your business has no requirement to relocate to the land at Longforth Farm.”

Cllr Thorne said it was clear Lidl wanted to undermine the planned employment use of the site opposite Cades Farm in order to strengthen its case for being allowed to open a supermarket instead.

“I do not believe that the interests of Relyon and Swallowfield have any relevance to whether an out of town supermarket should be allowed,” said Cllr Thorne.

“But the fact that these businesses now seem unlikely to move is going to have major knock-on effects to the longer-term look of Wellington.

“So, I think councillors should as a matter of urgency start looking at alternative ways to ease the amount of traffic in the town centre.

“At the same time, we ought to be looking at how we can accommodate a Lidl or Aldi closer to the town centre and it may be that we need to consider some radical proposals.

“There is huge demand in Wellington for the cheap shopping offered by Lidl and Aldi, and I fully understand why the ‘man in the street’ would support such a supermarket at Longforth Farm/Cades Farm.

“But the question I would ask is, would they support it if the application was by Tesco or Sainsbury, because planning is about land use and not the name of the business that might use the land.

“We have a newly reconstituted town centre committee which includes representatives from the Wellington business community, so I will be taking these issues there to try to start the debate rolling.”