Douglas Borough Council says it had a record response to its recent consultation exercise on the proposed expansion of the Tesco store.

A request for views on plans by the company to double the size of its premises prompted well over 200 responses in a fortnight, the vast majority of which were concerned about the possible impact on retailers in the capital and elsewhere in the Island.

And those are the grounds on which the Council, together with the Douglas Development Partnership and the Chamber of Commerce, will be formally objecting to the expansion at the public inquiry early next year.

Council leader David Christian says competition is one thing, but he and his colleagues believe that if the plan went ahead, Tesco's domination would lead to Douglas and other areas of the Island becoming ghost towns: