Residents claim new Sainsbury’s is ‘unnecessary’

The supermarket wrote to property owners last week, outlining plans to extend the site, which is currently operating as Mister Clean.

It said: “Our Sainsbury’s Locals tend to trade from 7am to 11pm, not on a 24 hour basis.

“We want to ensure the operation of our shop does not cause disruption to our neighbours. All plant equipment will be housed in an internal plant room. This will minimise any potential noise disturbance.

“We expect our new shop to create approximately 20 additional new full or part-time job opportunities for local people.”

But residents say the convenience store is an unnecessary addition to an already busy road.

Colin Houlson moved to Littlehampton Road from Hove in May last year.

He said: “One of the main reasons for the move was that this is a residential area and we thought that we would be away from this type of development.

“Littlehampton Road gets very busy during rush hour as it is but with a Sainsbury’s Local there will be people arriving to work early in the mornings as well as deliveries which will be noisy.

“I think the last thing this road needs is another traffic stream joining it and we think it will affect us a great deal.”

Tracy Neve, of Chantry Road, said: “It is in the early stages and no formal planning applications have been submitted but we are very unhappy about this.

“Sainsbury’s say they will recruit locally and that people will be encouraged to walk to work but this is not an ideal world and that is not going to happen. There is very little off-road parking round here as it is.

“I am also concerned about safety, particularly of schoolchildren.

“We are in spitting distance of two Tesco Express stores, I cannot see that this is necessary.”