Waterside is our No 1: ASDA

The firm made the commitment in response to speculation that a mooted store on Londonderry’s cityside may be higher on its agenda.

Philip Bartram, ASDA’s Property Communications Manager, pointed out that 81 per cent of local people supported its jobs-boosting plans for the Waterside and reiterated the company’s its commitment to opening a supermarket at the Crescent Link Retail Park.

He made the comments in response to speculation that other store plans may be higher on their agenda.

Mr Bartram said that the proposed store would create up to 350 new full and part time jobs and the company’s plans would bring greater consumer choice to the city and had the potential to stimulate real economic growth in the area.

“Over the last few months, we have been working closely with the Planning Service to ensure that they have all the information they require to process the application. We have also worked closely with the community to find out what they think and we were delighted to see that in a recent poll conducted by Lucidtalk, 81 per cent of local people supported ADSA’s plans for a store at Crescent Link Retail Park.

“On the back of these findings and the work we have undertaken with stakeholders throughout Derry/Londonderry, we can confirm that our first priority is the Cresent Link Development and gaining a positive decision to allow us to bring jobs and consumer choice to the city is our sole focus at this time.” Mr Bartram continued.

Mr Bartram also said he had been greatly encouraged by the public’s response to ASDA’s plans for Crescent Link and the company would continue to engage with the local community, as he believed there was strong local demand for Asda to come to the city.

ASDA has applied for planning permission to convert a unit currently occupied by Homebase into a full ASDA store with 990 car parking spaces.