For nearly 10 years, land at the back of the Station Avenue car park has been earmarked for a supermarket, while the chain also owns the former gas showrooms site, des-cribed at last week's annual parish meeting as "an abomination".

Before it was sold to Somerfield, the larger site was owned by West Yorkshire-based Henry Lax, who wanted to build multiple retail units. However, the site was later approved for use as a supermarket, with a new application passed last year when the original approval expired.

Earlier this year, two of Filey's ward councillors controversially backed rival plans for the creation of a smaller supermarket on the nearby Station Garage site, arguing the town could not wait indefinitely for Somerfield to fulfil its own plans.

But town councillor Marion Wright said what the town needed was a decent-sized supermarket, and anything less would only "make things worse" for shoppers. To applause at Filey's annual parish meeting, she said: "We're sick to death of tiny supermarkets that charge high prices and don't have a proper selection and until that comes, Filey Town Council won't be satisfied."

Chairman of Filey Chamber of Trade Chris Hodgson said it too wanted to see progress, but there was no way of forcing the company to declare its intentions.

The Mercury approached Somerfield for its comments at the beginning of the week, but the store has been staying tight-lipped.

The supermarket chain is currently in talks with the Co-operative Group which has made a provisional offer to buy Somerfield in a deal that could be worth in the region of £2 billion.

Criticism has grown in recent years of some of the largest UK supermarkets hanging onto significant landholdings, or "landbanks", to keep out rivals.

Although Somerfield is not thought to be one of the main offenders, the Competition Commission – which has previously ruled against the supermarket in Filey – recently noted that there was "a significant number of local areas where larger grocery stores face limited competition and local shoppers lose out".

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