THE leader of Wycombe District Council has vowed the town's former Woolworths store will remain as a retail outlet.

Cllr Lesley Clarke made the announcement after planners at neighbouring Chiltern District Council unanimously recommended proposals by a property developer to change the use of Amersham's former store be rejected.

It means the Sycamore Road site remains on the market as a vacant retail unit after developers made a bid to change it into a financial services outlet.

No similar bids have been made for the High Wycombe building vacated earlier this year by the fallen high street giants – and Cllr Clarke said she hoped it would stay that way.

When asked if there were any plans to change it from a retail unit, she said: “absolutely not”.

Cllr Clarke said: “It's still retail. It's part of the town centre, still on the high street and we hope there will be somebody in there sooner rather than later.”

Brian Woods of the Amersham Action Group spoke out against proposals to change the use of the town's former Woolworths at the planning meeting, saying there was “strong public support for effective development”.

He told the Bucks Free Press this week: “What we don't want is to have major retail units in the centre of the town converted into banks or building societies or anything of that nature. We've got quite enough of that in the shopping centre and we want to continue to encourage retail.”

Chiltern District Council's planning committee rejected the proposal as it would not “make a positive contribution” to the main shopping area of Amersham.

The committee rejected the proposals by eleven votes to none, but the final decision will be made by the council's head of planning.

What would you like to see in the former Woolworths store? Have your say below.