A SUPERMARKET chain is due to find out today whether it will be allowed to build a store in Pickering and create up to 25 jobs.

Councillors are set to make a decision tonight on German retailer Lidl’s plans to construct an outlet on the former coal depot.

If the application is given the green light, Lidl hopes to start building the store by June, with the shop opening by October.

More than 60 residents wrote to Ryedale District Council expressing their support for the proposed store, which would be located at the junction of Vivis Lane and the A170. The development would include a car park with 55 spaces.

The residents say the shop would be an asset to the community, would present some healthy competition to the other supermarket in Pickering, the Co-op, and would enhance the look of the coalyard.

In a letter to the council, one resident wrote: “With Pickering’s growing population I think we are desperately in need of an alternative to the Co-op’s monopoly here.”

But the scheme is not without its critics, which include Pickering and District Civic Society. It says the supermarket should be built on the opposite side of Vivis Lane, and the road should be moved, so that the traffic light junction of Vivis Lane, The Ropery and the A170 could be re-aligned to ease traffic congestion.

Stuart Harrison, treasurer of the society, said: “If the road was moved over it would be to the benefit of everybody. It would improve the area immensely, it would be a much more open, better-looking development and it would function better than what they have proposed.” Pickering county councillor Greg White has said he believed the Highways Authority could use some of the additional £18 million it expected to receive for highway improvements, along with a contribution from the district council, to straighten the junction.

He said: “The supermarket could then be built 50 yards further down Vivis Lane, where there are two adjacent plots belonging to Ryedale and the county council which, taken together, provide a larger area than is currently owned by Lidl and would surely make a better site for its supermarket.”

A Lidl spokesman said moving the site of the proposed store would affect its commercial viability and impact on road safety.

He said: “The suggestion the store could be accomodated further down Vivis Lane would fall foul of the policy tests set down by Government and accepted by Ryedale District Council officers.”