Dear Sir,
Thanks for the opportunity to give a response to the proposal of a retail park on the Business Park.
We SO need this.
The existing town centre does have empty shops yes, but few are the size required to attract major retailers. Our ‘twin town’ of Peterlee in East Durham has so much more in the way of choice with discount retailers such as Lidl, X Catalogue Shop, Poundworld, Home Bargains and BM Bargains.
All of these in a town the same size as Aycliffe and with a similar demographic – though, if anything, Aycliffe is more prosperous and should have the greater choice.
I know from their website that Lidl is looking for a site in Newton Aycliffe and there must be others. Whatever happened to the interest in Aycliffe that Home Bargains expressed some time ago after Newton News enquired?
There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have retailers from further up the scale as well as discount shops – how about a Sainsbury’s  or Ikea even?
We can but dream! Meanwhile, other towns get on with it and attract more and more in the way of retail investment. Incidentally, I already support our town centre shops and will continue to do so.
The last thing we need is to lose the few great shops we have – Aldi, Wilkinson’s, Savers, Heron Foods, Boyes, Poundstretcher, Bon Marche and Select amongst others.
Opening a retail park won’t kill off the town centre  if smart choices are made regarding the shops to be sited there.
Andrea McCulloch
St Oswald’s Walk