Victory claimed in row with Morrisons

Residents whose say their lives were made a misery when a Dudley supermarket installed a deliveries entrance near their homes are claiming victory after store bosses decided to move it.

Morrisons in Stallings Lane, Kingswinford, has started installing an entrance to the delivery bay at the front of the store after a two-year campaign by residents and businesses.

The campaigners complained gates in Hawkeswell Drive were in the wrong place because noisy delivery vehicles blocked access to their roads and cracked slabs by parking on pavements.

Campaign spokesman Graham Pritchard, owner of the Capability Brown hair salon in Charterfield Drive, said: "Morrisons installed big gates forcing big articulated vehicles to park across the entrance to Hawkeswell Drive.

"But they're doing something about it now. It looks like the gates are going full stop, with arrangements for vehicles to use the front of the store I think.

"It's a work in progress. This should finally allow a very uncomfortable situation we've been experiencing for some two and a half years, when Morrisons took over Safeways, to finish.

"I'd imagine it won't be finished completely until December though.

"Common sense has prevailed at last. Why Morrisons couldn't see that their actions were going to be very uncomfortable for residents in that area, I don't know."

Store manage Louise Harris, aged 22, said: "We are moving the entrance, but it isn't going to be immediate."