WILTSHIRE Council would like any new purchaser of the Bowyers factory site in Trowbridge to consider incorporating an element of housing as part of any new development.

Supermarket chain Morrisons listed the site for sale on commercial property and planning consultants Rapleys’ website in June, with the closing date for offers stated as noon on July 6.

The news came just months after the grocer reported an annual loss of £792m in March, with work on the site coming to an abrupt halt after contractors demolished disused factory buildings at the end of last year.

Plans for the £46m Innox Riverside development included a Cineworld cinema, Morrisons store, six restaurants and a pub, but Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for economic development Fleur de Rhe-Philipe said she was not surprised to see the site listed for sale.

“The supermarket market has changed enormously and particularly for Morrisons. They have their own difficulties, but the whole market for big supermarkets is changing, so we weren’t at all surprised to see them put it up for sale,” said Cllr de Rhe-Philipe.

“We were actually quite pleased as what we want to see is that that site developed and we’ve let the current owners know that we will work with any new purchaser to get that site developed.

“It is a gateway to the town and it’s got huge opportunities and we would like to see it get a move on, because it has been clear for quite some time that it wasn’t likely to make a move under the previous plans.”

Cllr de Rhe-Philipe told the Wiltshire Times that the council hopes any new development will complement St Stephen’s Place Leisure Park and the plans for the Peter Black site.

She explained that while the council would not want to see only housing on the site, it would like to see a mixed use development with some employment, some retail and some housing.

“We would like to see mixed use development and we wouldn’t object to some housing, as I think Trowbridge could do with some town centre housing. We are not really short of jobs; if you look at unemployment rates for Wiltshire they are very low,” said Cllr de Rhe-Philipe.

“It’s a big site and I don’t think that would exclude an element of housing, but we definitely wouldn’t want to see just housing though. We want it to fit in with the masterplan for Trowbridge and a mixed use site would fit in very well with that.

“We are in touch with the current owners and no doubt after July 6 we will find out who has bought it and we will then work with them as we have done with others before.”

Wiltshire Council initially rejected Prorsus’ plans to build on the derelict Bowyers site in 2012, with both the council and Legal and General arguing that a new cinema in Trowbridge would be hugely detrimental to the existing Odeon cinema at the St Stephen’s Place.

However, developer Prorsus appealed against the decision and in January last year, following a three-day hearing, the Planning Inspectorate approved the scheme.

Cllr de Rhe-Philipe said the council cannot take any blame for Morrisons deciding to sale the site and said the situation may have been worse if the development had been completed before the grocer pulled out.

She added: “I am not going to criticise, but when we worked with L&G they worked positively with the planners to address all their planning concerns and therefore we were able to bring that forward very quickly.

“We had concerns from a planning point of view about the original Bowyers plans and they didn’t work with us as constructively, but in all honesty, do I think this would have happened anyway given the change in the market? Yes, I do.

“There would have been a risk of Morrisons pulling out, having one cinema kill off the other and we could have ended up with worse than what we have at the moment. As it is we have a vacant site, it has been demolished and it’s ready for development.”