A DISUSED supermarket building looks set to become eight separate shops, despite a huge public outcry over the scheme.

The QLM building in Idle Road, Bolton, has been empty for some time and the owner said it was being used by drug-addicts and squatters.

But plans to divide it into smaller shops prompted 282 objections from local residents and ward councillors, many raising concerns about road safety.

Yesterday, Bradford planning panel heard that because the building was already approved for retail use, the applicant only needed planning permission for seven planned new shop-fronts along the front of the building. An eighth premises would not have a shop-front.

The meeting also heard there were 25 car parking spaces on the roof of the building, formerly a Morrisons supermarket.

Local councillor Rachel Sunderland (Lib Dem, Bolton and Undercliffe) spoke to object to the scheme, saying she had real fears over highways safety.

She said Idle Road was used by children walking to four local schools.

Her colleague, Councillor Tracey Leeming (Lib Dem, Bolton and Undercliffe), also voiced her concerns about parking and road safety, saying if the panel passed the scheme they would be showing "a disregard for the local community".

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But chairman Councillor Doreen Lee said the panel could only look at the shop-fronts, not matters to do with traffic or parking.

She said: "We might personally agree with you but that is not what we have to consider. I hear you, but we have to consider what is before us today.

"What is before us today is shop-fronts."

Applicant Jamil Ahmed said the building had lain empty for quite a few years and become a magnet for drug users, solvent abusers and squatters.

He said: "We had to clear away human excrement, which just showed how long they had been living there."

Mr Ahmed said he believed the total number of objections to their scheme was misleading, as some were duplicate comments.

He said: "Some objections were quite distasteful, there was a bit of a racial undertone to them."

He said a failed bid by a previous owner to turn the building into an Asian bazaar had created an atmosphere of "panic, mistrust and rumour" within the community, but this had nothing to do with the current application.

Speaking afterwards, Cllr Leeming said the case highlighted a wider problem with the planning process, that councillors were not able to consider all the important factors before granting permission.