SUPERMARKET bosses are being urged to give “firm answers” once and for all over the future of a proposed supermarket that could create more than 400 jobs.
A question mark hangs over the future of the proposed Morrisons at East Street in Southampton after the landowner went into administration, with the supermarket firm remaining tight-lipped over its plans.
But the troubled supermarket giant has moved to reassure council chiefs that it intends to continue with plans for another store, at the Centenary Quay development in Woolston.
Earlier this month Morrisons announced a 3.1 per cent drop in likefor- like sales over the festive period, while the firm’s chief executive, Dalton Philips, is set to stand down after five years at the helm of the struggling company.
The firm said ten loss-making stores would be axed, but has remained tight-lipped about which ones are facing closure.
East Street currently
The future of the proposed 60,000sq ft supermarket at East Street had already been thrown into doubt after the property firm managing the site, the De Stefano Property Group, went into administration.
Plans for the store, which would create 400 jobs, were approved two years ago.
But despite most of the old East Street Shopping Centre being knocked down, work to build the new store – which was scheduled to open this year – has not begun.
KPMG was appointed administrators of the De Stefano Property Group and site owners Arcadian Estates, and joint administrator Ed Boyle said his firm intended to “inject momentum” into the plans.
An artist's impression of the new Morrisons development in East Street
However Morrisons refused to confirm whether the company intends to continue with the plans, with a spokesman saying: “As the landowner is in administration we await an update on the situation.”
It used to contain the failed 1970s East Street shopping centre before that was knocked down over the past two years, and civic chiefs hoped the new supermarket and re-establishing the pedestrian link between St Mary’s and the city centre would boost the area.
Labour boss Cllr Simon Letts said the council was looking to get answers from Morrisons over both the East Street store and the 60,000sq ft store in Centenary Quay, which would create more than 200 jobs.
He said: “We are attempting to find out their intentions but we haven’t got a firm answer.
“We are looking for some certainty because both of these sites are important for the city.
“The supermarket in Centenary Quay is crucial for that part of the city, and the East Street supermarket will help to reinvigorate that area, and there are the jobs as well.
“If they don’t carry on with East Street I imagine there will be other people who will be very keen to pick up a supermarket site which has already been demolished and has planning permission.
“I suspect we will have little difficulty finding an alternative for the site.”
Speaking on behalf of both Crest Nicholson and Morrisons, a spokesman for the Centenary Quay developer said: “We can confirm we are on schedule with the construction of the supermarket development at Centenary Quay and we look forward to Morrisons opening once work has completed at the site.”
The new supermarket is scheduled to open in November.
EAST STREET - a history
East Street Centre nearing completion in February 1975
BEFORE the Second World War years East Street was one of the city’s busiest streets, with the street packed with crowds buying from grocers, butchers and other stores during the day and hordes of people flocking to its many night attractions in the evening.
Some buildings were destroyed in the Second World War, with new ones such as the Edwin Jones department store rising in their place in the decades after the conflict.
That building became Debenhams in the early 1970s, with that decade also seeing the construction of the East Street Shopping Centre, the city’s first indoor shopping centre.
The centre, which blocked off the eastern part of East Street, was designed to attract huge crowds of shoppers but proved a flop. Its last unit was vacated in 2012, and it was knocked down ahead of the proposed supermarket being built.
East Street itself still features a wide range of retail outlets.
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