New Riverside Tesco workshop will carry out two car repairs a day

The Xpress Centre would occupy 11 spaces in the car park of the 'Riverside' store in Castle Lane East, alongside a vacant plot of land earmarked for development – and currently subject to an application by Lok’nStore.

The scheme has been criticised for the felling of five trees, the alleged impact on traffic and further commercialisation of the area.

Tesco says it expects to carry out only a handful of repairs a day, and the workshop will provide "existing customers an extra offer and service without impeding on their main shopping experience".

However planning board members agreed that the plan would have a minimal impact on traffic or parking. "That type of repair, people go shopping and have work done while they are there," said councillor Stephen Bartlett.

"With an average day seeing only two repairs I can't see traffic being a problem myself," said Cllr Christopher Wakefield.

Cllr Malcolm Davies said numerous car parks had "marquees where this is being carried out already".

Members approved the scheme with a condition that Tesco plant five trees elsewhere on its site to compensate for those lost.

However, ward councillor Lawrence Williams, who objected to the scheme at the meeting, said his residents felt the area around Tesco was being overdeveloped.

"There was no mention of the number of objections this received from residents, I don't think that has been taken into consideration," he said.

"Taking car parking spaces away is not the answer, the pictures they had were not what that car park looks like on a normal basis, it is packed."

Cllr Williams, who said he was likely to oppose the Lok'nStore plans despite that site being earmarked for development in council policy, told the board he was concerned about the amount of traffic in the area resulting from development being approved prior to the completion of the Wessex Fields A338 link road.

Residents also raised concerns over air pollution and flooding.