NOTE TO SUBS; WITH NEW PIC BY BRIAN OF QUALITY FARE BOSS ON SITE.......

WORK has finally begun on a new store at Bedale, 16 months after planning permission was granted.

The £1.2m development, on a previously derelict site behind the market place, represents the first new build undertaken by the Colburn-based Quality Fare chain, which has 19 branches but until now has always taken over and adapted existing buildings.

Director Mr Ian Leathley hopes to have the 11,300sq ft food store handed over from the builders, Northallerton-based Walter Thompson, by November 14.

A controversial one-way traffic system through Wycar and The Wynd has had to be devised to cope with the expected effects of the new store, the rear access of which will be in an area where existing roads are narrow and footpaths limited or non-existent.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire highways department, which will have to make special traffic orders for the one-way system, said no official notification had yet been received that work had started on the store. It could not be opened, however, until the new traffic arrangements had been fully implemented.

On the market place frontage, an existing shop unit in Market Court will be moved elsewhere in the arcade to make way for a pedestrian access into the store. The rear access from Wycar will take shoppers' cars and delivery vans, with room for 38 parking spaces.

Mr Leathley bought his existing market place store 13 years ago, but said restricted space and practical difficulties in adapting it had convinced him that new open plan premises were needed. He will continue to run the present building as a scaled-down convenience store after the new development is opened.

Mr Leathley said so much time had elapsed between planning permission and the start of work on the new store because it had been a matter of seeking prices and fine tuning of detail with the relevant authorities.

A mixture of between 30 and 40 full- and part-time jobs is expected to be created at the new store, being built on land originally earmarked for development by the property company which opened Market Court, now owned by Mr Leathley.

When the Yarm-based Newham Properties developed Market Court in the former Bedale Garage building 12 years ago, permission was also given for commercial development and car parking on land at the rear, but this part of the consent was never implemented.

Mr Leathley said he hoped his new store would help to attract more trade to Bedale and added: "Everyone is feeling the pinch from out-of-town developments. If you have the building you can provide the service. You have to modernise all the time, but this new store is a one-off for us."

Mr Leathley, the sixth generation of a Masham family to go into business, now has Quality Fare branches in County Durham and Northumberland as well as in Bedale, Romanby, Catterick, Colburn, Leyburn and Thirsk. He hopes soon to start work on a long-planned expansion of the Romanby branch.

Two years ago two branches of McCormicks were taken over in County Durham and will soon be renamed under the Quality Fare banner.