NAAS, 26 March 2002: by Brian Byrne. Superquinn has emphatically denied rumours that it has sold its premises in Naas to another - British - supermarket group.
The rumours have circulated in Naas for several days, but this afternoon a company spokesperson from its head office said there was no foundation to the idea, in which it was suggested that the UK Sainsbury's group had purchased the Naas shop.
"It is well known that we would dearly love to build elsewhere in the Naas area, and plans we had to do this last year had to be abandoned when we weren't given planning permission," the spokesperson said. "We are not properly able to serve our customers in Naas in our present location, with the problem of parking. One option which was under consideration was to move to a site at QK Cold Stores, and maintain our current store as a smaller Superquinn outlet to serve the immediate townspeople."
Naas Town Council has a policy of not allowing major retail developments to be built outside the town centre, for fear that they would take business away from the centre. The downside of that policy is that an increasing number of Naas people are shopping in Newbridge, where outside-town new stores are providing better shopping facilities and more parking.
Superquinn in Naas has also adopted a policy of paid parking, with reimbursement for customers who spend over five euros. This is to protect itself against being used as a free car park under the new Paid Parking regime in Naas.
©2002knn