PLANS are afoot to create a huge retail, leisure and business park that developers say would create in excess of 1,000 jobs on a site near junction 4 of the M55.

A planning application to build a giant B&Q superstore on the land next to Dugdale Farm, on Whitehill Road, Westby, has already been submitted to Fylde Borough Council.

However, the Sheffield-based developer Henry Boot Developments Ltd says this proposal is only the beginning of a much larger scheme to develop the area.

The B&Q planning application proposes building a store with a retail space of 100,000 square foot with 576 attached car parking spaces.

Developers estimate it would create employment for around 220 staff.

But the plans for the out-of-town B&Q superstore have been greeted with a mixture of horror and disbelief by traders who say it would sound a death knell for established town centres.

Arnold Sumner, chairman of St Annes Chamber of Trade, said: "I am wholeheartedly against this development.

"This Government has said it is against out-of-town retail developments.

"They strike at the very heart of town centres, destroying their vitality.

"In the first instance we are going to write to Fylde Borough Council to make our feelings clearly known."

Keith Hutchinson, PR manager for Henry Boot Developments, said: "We hope this site will be developed as a retail, leisure and business park, including the B&Q store, for which a planning application has been submitted.

"I am not able to comment on the trading situation at the moment but the park will create a lot of employment and is expected to provide some 1,000 new jobs in office, light industrial and retail sectors."

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