Residents and shopkeepers react to Hawker Woolworths proposal

The Canberra Times

Woolworths wants to expand its current Metro store at the Hawker shops into a larger, full-line supermarket. Residents and shopkeepers have different views about it, some welcoming the upgrade, others concerned it will destroy the community feel of the shops

Transcript

00:00 [Indistinct chatter]

00:22 I just think the centre is a bit tight.

00:24 Look, it needs a revamp. It's been like this for years.

00:27 There's plenty of car parking spots. I don't believe anyone's going to miss out on a car parking spot.

00:32 It would be good to see more people at the centre.

00:36 At night, it doesn't look very nice. Even the park looks tight.

00:41 The whole area is tight. It needs a revamp.

00:44 And if Woolworths want to do that, it sounds great.

00:47 Well, unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of it.

00:50 And it was really a sort of a tick-tick-box situation where not a lot of people actually knew about it.

00:56 There was no advertising. There were no posters put up for it. It was in the middle of the winter.

01:00 And everybody I speak to, all my friends who shop here, actually don't know about any of the Woolworths plans.

01:05 The shopping centre works fantastically for the community because of all the roads and all the interconnecting exits.

01:11 And there's flow onto all the medical facilities.

01:15 Woolworths could do a fantastic improved Woolworths if they wanted to on the shop footprint

01:22 because they own all the land in front of their supermarket.

01:25 So there's lots of opportunities for a really improved village feel

01:29 and also keeping what everybody likes about this particular style of shopping.

01:35 There's very easy, accessible, quick shopping without the complications of trying to go underground possibly.

01:44 The elderly use this all around the area because they can safely walk across the pedestrian.

01:50 It's an intimate, nice-sized Woolworths so they know that they can shop really well and safely.

01:58 And it's just very efficient and that's why people all around the region drop in after work and before work

02:05 and then flow onto all the other suburbs because of the quick, available parking and accessibility.

02:12 It is at the moment a 25-year-old shop in Hawker.

02:16 I believe that the car park is good for the older people, for anyone on the run, moving.

02:22 It's just a short stay. You've got the medical centre here, you've got the dentist, the chemist and Woolworths at the moment.

02:28 If we need to do another development, I don't know why it has to be upgraded so much.

02:33 I'd rather see the footpaths and that fixed up by the government.

02:36 We've got Jemison and Kipax only two k's away and there's no need for another redevelopment in Hawker.

02:42 Hawker Village is about community-friendly use.

02:46 Thank you.

02:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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