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A COMMUNITY COUNCILLOR is voicing a threat to boycott a new Co-op store being planned for Lhanbryde on the site of the Tennant Arms Hotel.
The Hotel is scheduled for demolition despite an intense local campaign to save the landmark building – no the national store is being accused of ignoring the wishes of local people.
Campaigners say that the community will boycott the £500,000 store when it is completed – claiming their concerns over the development have been ignored with several attempts to contact the Co-op and arrange a meeting rebuffed.
Secretary of the Innes Community Council, Jim Mackie, said that the manner in which the Co-op has treated the community had annoyed a lot of people, adding: “We have invited the Co-op to come to our meetings to talk about it – but it has been clear they are just not interested.
“When they refurbished their store in Fochabers there was a fence outside the front for more than a year – I do not know how they can get away with that at the Tennant Arms without closing the road. We have told them what is going to happen – it is a busy road, but they are not interested, so the feeling now with a lot of people is they will just boycott it.”
Local MP Douglas Ross has called on the store owners to reconsider their plans.