AN MP has urged supermarket giant Sainsbury’s to go back to the drawing board after it unveiled a fourth set of plans for a new Southampton store.

Southampton Test MP Alan Whitehead said the grocer had not listened to residents’ concerns and failed to come up with suitable plans for the former bus depot site in Portswood.

Sainsbury’s plans to slash the number of proposed homes from 140 to 67 and axe a medical centre from its scheme, while increasing the size of the superstore.

Dr Whitehead said: “The new Sainsbury’s proposals are a very substantial deviation from what local residents and planners agreed a number of years ago.

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“Though elements of the original plan may now be beyond reach, Sainsbury’s still has a great deal of work to demonstrate that they are listening to local residents and putting forward a plan that is sustainable for Portswood – both economically and environmentally. I’m not convinced they’ve done that yet.”

He added: “Community facilities and new social housing should be absolutely integral to any new Sainsbury’s development, and not merely ‘potential builds’ that are to arrive at some undefined point in the future. And there are clearly still issues relating to traffic flow and the impact on local traders that have yet to be fully addressed.”

Many residents and businesses who visited an exhibition of the plans said they were happy there would be fewer homes, but others were worried the revised scheme would lead to added traffic chaos on nearby roads and that independent traders would suffer.

Sainsbury’s said the third party developer behind the proposed medical centre concluded it was “no longer viable or deliverable”.

Regional development executive Max Whitehand said: “We believe that the new store will be good for Portswood as it will stem leakage of trade outside of the area. The new store is on the periphery of the district centre and will keep and attract more shoppers to Portswood.”

Sainsbury’s first put in a planning application to build a new store on the site of the Portswood bus depot five years ago.

The Secretary of State threw out the £30m proposals after ruling the layout of affordable housing and a superstore car park made the development unacceptable.

A second set of plans were approved two years ago only to be revised with “minor changes” to the store front, access and road layout.