PLANNING officers are advising councillors to a reject a multi million application to create a superstore on a former steelworks.

Retail giant Tesco wants to develop the former industrial site in Consett, claiming it will create 250 jobs and safeguard 150 posts from a store at nearby Delves Lane.

But Fiona Clarke, principal planning officer with Durham County Council, is advising members to refuse permission.

She has prepared a report for the committee meeting next Tuesday concluding that the scheme with harm the town’s centre’s existing economy.

Ms Clarke said: "The proposal would result in a stand alone out of centre retail store, which would divert significant trade away from the defined town centre and other sequentially preferable sites thus unacceptably impacting upon the vitality and viability of Consett town centre."

Ms Clarke’s advice reflects a recommendation made by her colleague, Mike Hempsall, who prepared a report for the former Derwentside District Council, which discussed the proposal in last year before it was abolished.

Members indicated that they were ‘minded to approve’ the application, but it had to be sent to the Government Office for the North-East because it represented a departure from the authority’s local plan.

The regional department said the final decision should be determined by Durham County Council, which took over from Derwentside after the reorganisation of local government last year.

Ms Clarke acknowledges that the proposal would bring substantial investment, job creation and financial support worth £400,000 for environmental improvements to the town centre.

However, she also said a retail study of the area found there was ‘limited, if any, need for additional retailing capacity in Consett Town Centre, let alone the scale of store proposed by this application’.