THE owner of the ill-fated Blackwood Gate Retail Park called for talks with Caerphilly council to help find a way of filling it.

London-based Linnell Investments spokesman Howard Moss said the company remains determined to find a “positive resolution” despite the local authority rejecting plans for a supermarket at the site.

The company had lined up Morrisons to take on the 46,000 sq ft unit vacant since Focus DIY went bust last year – a move which would have created 250 jobs before Christmas.

The application was turned down by planning committee members because the area is in Caerphilly’s local development plan as a site for bulky goods retail, is not well-served by transport links and there is a large vacant food store on the town’s High Street.

This caused huge controversy, with councillors wading into the debate while the issue has featured prominently in the Argus’ letters pages and on our website.

Mr Moss said that after Focus DIY went bust, more than 200 enquiries were made to bulky goods companies but none were interested in taking on the site.

He said Morrisons could have opened a store there by Christmas, bringing 250 jobs.

The former Focus DIY unit covers half the site and the other half is also empty.

Specialist retail agent Peter Hales, who works on behalf of Linnell, said the only way of attracting other retailers to the site was by having Morrisons as the “anchor tenant”.

Townplanner ShawnCullen called the site “the important southern gateway” to the town and “a key location which will enable the town to prosper”.

He said: “It is likely to remain vacant with no plausible occupier coming forward.

This will mirror the problems associated with the smaller former Somerfield site on the High Street that has been empty for five years, with no retailer being interested in it.”