WILLITON will not lose Lloyds – its one remaining bank – if an application for a controversial shopping development is successful, the businessman behind the scheme pledged this week.

David Gliddon has made a third bid to develop land behind his shops and agricultural business in Bank Street which would involve a walkway into Fore Street taking up part of the Lloyds Bank site.

But he said: “It is not our intention to see the bank close.”

The application – for a mini-roundabout, retail space and pedestrian access – is due to come before West Somerset Council’s planning committee meeting within the next two months.

It is part of an original scheme, thrown out by the committee last December, for a £7 million supermarket development following a 1,100-strong protest petition but against the advice of planning officers who said they would find it hard to defend the decision if there was an appeal.

Now Mr Gliddon has told the Free Press that he does intend to appeal against the supermarket decision: “It would have been easy to build houses on the site but that would have been unsatisfactory and I would have always regretted it,” he said.

“Our scheme would put heart into the village and help prevent it become a dormitory of Minehead and Taunton. The new application is really very small and should be non-controversial.”

At the previous planning application last December, the council’s assistant director of planning, Tim Burton, said: “I cannot see any reason for refusal” after the committee had voted against the scheme for four retail units, a mini roundabout and an access road off Bank Street.

The supermarket scheme had been turned down by nine votes to two – the third refusal in four years.

Mr Gliddon said that the Fore Street building housing Lloyds Bank would remain in retail use although on the ground floor some space would be devoted to a public walkway. Should it need more space, Lloyds could be offered a prime spot in the new development - “We would try to help as much as we can.”

In an application to area planning manager Bryn Kitching, Mr Gliddon said the additional retail space would provide 22 full-time jobs and would be the first new retail development for 40 years. Williton had lost at least nine shops in recent years.

He said that, in their letters of support, many local businesses had said that the new development would make Williton more active and attractive to shoppers and visitors and that it would be a catalyst for further development and investment.

He believed that by not encouraging potential new retailers, the council was in effect saying: “We don’t want you in this town.”

Williton Parish Council has been against the scheme from the outset, believing that it would result in the loss of Lloyds Bank and cause traffic congestion in Bank Street.

Fears that the remaining bank would close should the development go ahead were also voiced by the pressure group Keep Williton Special which believed that elderly people who found it difficult to bank on line would be forced to travel to Minehead or Taunton.