Reaction to the news that Starbucks is hoping to open a drive-through in a South Lakeland town has been mixed.
There has been excitement over the job opportunities an Ulverston branch would provide but concerns have been expressed about the out-of-town Beehive Business Park location.
District councillor Shirley-Anne Wilson addressed fears that a major chain such as Starbucks would drag business away from independent businesses.
She said that, when Costa opened in the town, there were concerns it would lead to other cafés shutting.
“If you look at what’s happened, none of them have closed, because people make choices,” she said.
“If you’re a customer that goes to Gillam’s, you’re probably not going to suddenly say ‘now Costa is open, I’m going to stop going to Gillam’s’.
“I think that the majority of people, certainly Ulverston residents, they will do some shopping at Marks & Spencer, some at Aldi, but I still go to the Co-op [in the town centre], I still go to shops in Ulverston, it’s a combination.”
Cllr Wilson also pointed out that Starbucks would create jobs just as McDonald’s, which opened earlier this month at the Beehive Business Park, had.
Town councillor Andrew Butcher felt ‘any business to Ulverston is good’ but expressed reservations about the proposed location of Starbucks.
“I can’t see people going to the business park, then going to Ulverston,” he said.
He believed any Starbucks should be in the town centre because ‘it draws a lot of trade but, also, people use other shops’.
He said this would also benefit a town market that he felt was going ‘downhill’.
“They need to get market stallholders wanting to come into Ulverston, so we need that footfall, don’t we, and then the shops will benefit as well,” he said.
“People want to come and see a vibrant market.”
