Megastore plan shelves amid growing town centre woes

A last ditch on whether to allow Sainsbury’s to build a new superstore in Southport has been delayed amid fears for the future of the town centre.

This is despite the plans for the store, on Meols Cop Retail Park, being scaled back after the collapse of the food giant’s proposed merger with Asda.

Sefton Council are now set to make a decision on the store on July 31 which would be built after the former Homebase store is demolished.
Permission was granted in December 2016 for a store raised on stilts with parking beneath, first-floor foodstore, car parking and filling station – which runs until December 7, 2019.

But when the planned Asda merger fell through earlier this year, Sainsbury’s moved towards reducing store sizes.