DESIGNS for the controversial new Booths supermarket in Barrowford have gone on public display for the first time.

The blueprints are on show at Higherford Methodist Church to give residents, traders and councillors an idea of how the supermarket would look on the site of Park Mill and the former Pendle Brook House care home, in Halstead Lane, off Gisburn Road.

Residents in the immediate vicinity of the site have been consulted on the designs, which are now expected to be put before Pendle Council’s Barrowford with Western Parishes Committee for approval.

But traders in the village criticised the Lancashire-based supermarket chain for not keeping them informed of developments.

Jane Dale, of Whiteside’s bakers, in Gisburn Road, fears the store will take some of their trade and lead to an increase in traffic.

She said: “I don’t recall being invited to have a look a these designs, unless I have missed something in the post at the Barrowford shop, but I usually check that.

"We would have liked to have been kept in the loop.”

Building work at the new Booths is under way and the store is expected to open next summer.

Whiteside’s also have shops in Dockray Street and Keighley Road, Colne, and a factory in Norfolk Street, near the new Sainsbury’s.

Mrs Dale said: “When all the Sainsbury’s stuff was going on we were constantly kept informed by them.

"We do not have a clue what’s going on with the Booths supermarket.

"Like we need another supermarket anyway.”

Coun Shelagh Derwent said she could not comment on the designs because she is a member of the local committee.

She said: “Residents have been consulted on the designs.

"I have spoken to some of them and they seem to prefer these to the previous ones because they are more in keeping with the mill that was there.”