Sainsbury’s survey reveals support for new supermarket plans at former Homebase site on Northgate Retail Park, Newark

A survey has found that plans for a new Sainsbury’s supermarket in Newark has seen an “overwhelmingly positive response” from the community.

In August of last year, Sainsbury’s announced plans to create a new supermarket location in Newark after acquiring the former Homebase site on Northgate Retail Park.

The retailer later submitted an application to Newark and Sherwood District Council to convert the building from a non-food store into a supermarket, and if approved, the new store could open by the end of this year.

Sainsbury’s state that new store would deliver a range of benefits to the community and represent a £14million investment by regenerating a currently vacant space and provide “improved shopping options for local people.”

The closest Sainbury’s site to Newark is a small store located on London Road in Balderton.

As part of the plans, approximately 100 new full-time and part-time jobs will be created, and support for local charity and community initiatives will be build into the service, such as redistributing surplus food from the store to those in need.

As well as its food grocery offer, the new supermarket will also feature an Argos outlet, Habitat homeware, and Tu clothing ranges.

In order to gauge the public support for its plans, Sainsbury’s reached out to residents to share their views via a regional consultation.

As well as providing information about the proposals, the community were asked if they though Newark would benefit from having an improved choice of local shops, and whether or not they supported “the principle of revitalising the vacant Homebase building into a new Sainsbury's store”.

Over a period of two weeks, the survey received over 500 responses, and the supermarket giant has said that 80% of respondents said that they supported the proposals.

Christian Wakelin, Sainsbury’s head of supermarket property development, said: “We’re passionate about delicious food and we want to make it easier for customers to access it wherever we can, so we’re delighted by the overwhelmingly positive response we’ve seen for our plans to bring a new Sainsbury’s store in Newark.

“We hope that Newark and Sherwood District Council will take the community’s strong desire to see this store delivered into account when determining our application.

“We want to bring new jobs to the town and invest in creating convenient new place for people to shop locally – something that would clearly benefit the community for years to come.”

At the time of Sainsbury’s planning submission, concerns were raised about potential traffic issues with the Northgate Retail Park site.

Newark and Sherwood District Council will make the final decision on the plans.