Discount store makes way for new shops (From The Oxford Times)

Discount store makes way for new shops

7:00pm Wednesday 18th April 2012 in News

THE owner of Witney discount store Merlins has been given planning permission to demolish the building and build five news shops on the site.

West Oxfordshire District Council’s lowlands area planning sub-committee gave consent to Realis Estates on Monday.

The Welch Way building will be replaced with a two-storey retail block. An earlier design had included flats. Work is expected to start almost immediately.

Committee chairman Warwick Robinson said: “There was no good reason to refuse and overall it was not controversial.

“We thought the scheme was much better than the previous one, which involved upper floor residential and created problems with parking. You have now got a completely retail development and, architecturally, it is based on the very successful development in Woolgate.”

The existing building was constructed in the 1960s for the Southern Electricity Board.