THE DARWEN Shop and Business Association has spoken out over plans to build a Lidl in Darwen.

Members of the group fear it will ruin the trade of smaller businesses and cause the town to lose its shopping identity.

Last week we revealed that Lidl bosses wanted to open a new store on the Horizon Foam Holdings site between Vale Street and Robert Street in Duckworth Street.

The Darwen Chamber of Trade said it would be a welcome boost to the area.

But the shop and business association is objecting to the plan.

Tracy Kenyon, vice-chair of the association, said: "Market towns consist of many small businesses offering local and visiting shoppers a wide choice of goods while maintaining a very personal customer care policy.

"All this could be lost forever. It is therefore, difficult if not impossible, to believe that another conglomerate construction will not affect the existing small businesses."

She suggested the site should be turned into a car park to entice shoppers into Darwen.

"Exiting the Lidl store will take shoppers away from the main thoroughfare of the small shops and the market and add to the already unacceptable traffic congestion," she said. "However if the council was to make the proposed site into a car park, visitors may well return to Darwen and its diversity of shopping opportunities."

Bosses at Lidl will be submitting a planning application to Blackburn with Darwen Council within the next few weeks.

Brenda Cronshaw, owner of Brenda's Collectables in the three-day market, said: "What we want is something we haven't got to bring people into the town.

"We have Sainsbury's, Iceland, Netto and the Co-op and Lidl will only be selling what they are selling.

"I'd like to see something that we really need like units selling clothes, shoes, curtains, which we don't have in Darwen. That would bring the shoppers in."

Lidl representatives will be holding an open day on Friday September 21 at Darwen Library Theatre from 12pm to 4.30pm for residents to discuss the proposed development and sample a selection of the store's produce.

A Lidl spokesperson said the store would be ideally situated to serve all Darwen residents and would bring choice, jobs and investment to the town.