RESIDENTS will get their first look at plans for a new supermarket tomorrow.

Huddersfield architects Acumen have organised information sessions about the proposed store at Hope Bank Works in Honley.

Felix Eaton, who owns half the Woodhead Road site, will submit a planning application to Kirklees Council next month for the supermarket – which could end up being a Booths, a Waitrose or a Morrisons.

If the store goes ahead it could scupper other supermarket proposals for the Holme Valley – including Tesco’s controversial blueprint to develop the former Midlothian Garage site in Holmfirth.

Mr Eaton runs shopfitters Replan, which shares Hope Bank Works with drinks company Stanwell Technic and sheet metal firm Allsops.

His plan involves demolishing Replan and Stanwell’s ageing buildings to make way for a new supermarket. Both businesses would relocate to a former football pitch within the site while Allsops would remain in its current location.

Mr Eaton said yesterday that the proposal would be good for Honley.

“If there has to be a supermarket in this area then why not benefit some local companies that need to relocate?

“The plan would also keep the supermarket at arm’s length from the village centre to preserve the traders that we have,” he said.

Mr Eaton came up with the idea of a supermarket at the site after reading about a rumoured development at Keith Drake’s Agricultural Merchants on Woodhead Road in Honley.

He said: “I saw in the Examiner some time ago that Drake’s was rumoured as a site for a supermarket.

“That alarmed me because I thought it was too close to the village and I though the traffic lights on Woodhead Road wouldn’t be able to cope with the extra traffic.

“I went to Penistone and talked to the shopkeepers there about the impact of the big new Tesco.

“I got a mixed response – the Co-op seemed to have suffered terribly but the other retailers hadn’t been devastated, they had suffered a bit of ‘nibbling’ at their trade.