Developer, Rodney Thompson, of Canberra first submitted a DA for the supermarket late last year but after community concern, the exhibition period was extended.

Following the extended exhibition period and a lively community meeting at the Pambula Surf Life Saving Club, on December 17, a number of local people provided submissions to council and a revised DA was exhibited on April 20 for 14 days.

Mr Thompson explained that the revision covered the way delivery trucks accessed the site.

“We’ve had to pick up a bit of extra land from Neil (Neil Dawson was the original owner of the land). The supermarket was going up to the edge of the block at the back but now it has an access road around it to allow trucks to come in from Bullara Street rather than manoeuvring in the car park area,” he said

“It’s not a substantial change but it meant we had to re-exhibit.”

Mr Thompson is hoping the DA will be discussed at the council meeting in either late May or early June. If it’s approved he believes there will be two to three months of design work before building work starts.

“There’ll be about nine months of building; we want to get into it as quickly as possible because time is money in development,” Mr Thompson said.

Mr Thompson applied for a DA before Christmas after the owner and original developer of the site, Neil Dawson, put the development on ice back in 2012. The original DA for a retail complex has been modified to a single storey supermarket of 920sqm with a liquor store. 

Rodney Thompson also purchased the Hotel Australasia in Eden with a view to developing a supermarket there but after a fierce community campaign to save the building he ended up selling it to Bega Valley Shire Council for about $550,000, the News Weekly understands.