A TOWN centre trader in Ludlow has made an impassioned plea against a new supermarket being built on the outskirts of the town.

Henry Mackley, who runs the delicatessen shop Harp Lane, has written an open letter to MP Philip Dunne and the Prime Minister David Cameron saying that he believes that the proposed development in Rocks Green would ruin the town.

A planning application has been lodged with Shropshire Council to build the supermarket and petrol station on land adjacent to the A49 on the Dun Cow site.

“I’m not going to do statistics, figures and facts about pros and cons, jobs lost and jobs gained,” said Mr Mackley.

“These are all out there and they don’t really mean that much anyway, not in the grand scheme of things.

“What matters, what really profoundly matters should the supermarket go ahead, is that our little town as we know it will eventually splutter, wither and die. It will and statistics won’t tell us that until it happens.

“Ludlow is such a very special place, and almost unique in so much that it has an aesthetically and historically stunning town centre that actually functions as an real market town, as opposed to tourist chocolate box playgrounds like Southwold, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold etc.

He said that Ludlow’s independent shops are the lifeblood of the town.

“We live in a town populated by independent shops that thrive because Ludlow people use them,” Mr Mackley added.

“The tourist trade is welcomed and brings money in, but it’s not depended upon. However, tourists come here because of what we have.

“How many small rural towns populated by 11,000 people can claim three butchers, three bakers, two greengrocers, three delicatessens, an ironmonger, wine merchant, fishmonger, a thrice-weekly market, two jewellers, a haberdasher, two tailors? I’ll wager none.

“Ludlow has supermarkets too. Tesco, Aldi and Co-op, Spar and two small One Stop convenience stores, all within a stone’s throw of the town-centre.

“And there’s the rub: these supermarkets are all in Ludlow itself. They have big car parks, loyalty points, loo rolls, bin bags and other things you can’t get in the little shops. It’s fine, and it works. The supermarkets bring people into the town.

“Put a supermarket on the edge of Ludlow, and I think it will be game-over for one of England’s last surviving market towns.”

Behind the scheme is a company called Blackfriars Development Limited which is part of the Blackfriars Development Group.

They say that the area will benefit because money that currently goes out of the area to nearby town like Leominster, Kidderminster and Shrewsbury would be retained in the Ludlow and south Shropshire area.

Blackfriars, who staged a public consultation last year, has said that the scheme would create more than 200 new jobs.