SAWTRY could have a new supermarket by 2009, with double the retail space of the present Co-op and its own off-street parking Anglia Regional Co-op is seeking planning consent to demolish an existing vehicle repair workshop in Glatton Road to make way for

SAWTRY could have a new supermarket by 2009, with double the retail space of the present Co-op and its own off-street parking

Anglia Regional Co-op is seeking planning consent to demolish an existing vehicle repair workshop in Glatton Road to make way for the new building, plus nine public car parking spaces, one of which would be for a disabled driver.

The company's spokesman, Philip Taylor, told The Hunts Post: "Our existing unit (in Green End Road) is over-shopped. The configuration is poor, parking is poor and the offer to customers is limited.

"We think Sawtry would benefit from a store twice the size, in modern premises that are fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act and with off-street parking and so on."

If planning consent is granted for the development, building and fitting out of the single-storey building is expected to take between six and eight months, he estimated.

The Co-op says that, as well as Sawtry, the store would serve the food, grocery and general household needs of Glatton, Holme, Hamerton, Winwick, Luddington-in-the-Brook and the Giddings.

The shop would be open from 7am to 10pm Monday-Saturday and from 8am to 8pm on Sundays, if the planners agree.

The site would also include space for staff to park and for lorries to turn round, so that the single daily out-of-hours delivery would involve the vehicle travelling forwards both onto and off the site.

"The principal architectural feature of the building will be the curving metal-clad barrel-vaulted roof, which provides a graceful and eye-catching feature in the streetscape," the architects, Waterland Associates of Oundle, have told planners. The walls will be clad in yellow brick, if the development is allowed.

"This will provide the residents of Sawtry and its outlying villages the opportunity to carry out their day-to-day shopping without the need for long car journeys into Peterborough or Huntingdon.