Town Centre Development

Progress on developing the town centre site has been hampered because ownership of the key market site has changed hands twice. However, discussions have taken place with the current owner Harry Watts and his agents and at the end of last year he signed an agreement with Box Clever and Simons Developments, the company behind Witney's successful Marriotts Walk development. It is expected that plans will be submitted early this year for a town centre scheme.

Somerfield

We have been provided with this information about the future of the store by Haldanes:

A branch of a new Uk-wide supermarket chain will open its doors for business in Carterton in March 2010.
Haldanes Stores Ltd., which is based in Grantham, Lincolnshire, is taking over the Somerfield store in Alvescot Road, and will start trading as Haldanes on March 20, with all 35 jobs guaranteed. This ends almost a year of uncertainty for the staff since the acquisition of Somerfield by the Co-operative Group and the subsequent intervention by the Office of Fair Trading who asked for 133 outlets nationwide to be sold off on competition grounds. Good news for local businesses is that Haldanes – with a chain from the far north of Scotland to Wales and as far south as Essex – has declared that more than a third of all its products and produce will come from suppliers in each store’s area. Haldanes also pledges that it wants to engage with community groups and interests in the manner of local stores of yesteryear.