A SUPERMARKET giant is planning to turn a Haworth pub into a convenience store and create up to 20 jobs.

Tesco has also submitted a planning application to install a cash machine in a window at the pub, the Royal Oak, in Mill Hey.

Traders fear the scheme could kill existing small businesses in the area.

John Bateman, assistant general manager of Wild's Bakery, which has a branch in Mill Hey, said: "This will be the death knell to every small shopkeeper down there. Big businesses always seen to overrule the smaller people."

But Tesco refutes the claims.

Spokesman Mark Thomas said: “Transforming the Royal Oak into a small convenience store will benefit the area by encouraging people to shop locally, bringing increased footfall to Mill Hey.

"Our proposals will create up to 20 jobs and bring convenient services to the community, from a wide range of fresh products to a free cash machine.

"We’re looking forward to serving the Haworth community and will be writing to neighbours to set out our plans shortly.”

He added that the supermarket was seeking planning permission to refurbish the Royal Oak building, which would include rebuilding the rear part of the property.

The Royal Oak is owned by pub company Enterprise Inns, which did not want to comment on Tesco's plans.

Worth Valley ward councillor Rebecca Poulsen said she felt this was a strange location for a Tesco, given the close proximity of the Spar shop.

"I'm very surprised," she said. "There have been rumblings for a while that Tesco has been interested in Haworth, but most people thought it would be somewhere at the top of the village where there is no grocery.

"It seems rather strange to locate this right next to an existing convenience shop. It's also a very dangerous corner, and where would people park?"

A statement accompanying the supermarket's application for a cash machine explains that this would be built into the existing window opening to the right hand side of the main entrance door.

The statement adds: "The location of the ATM within the window means that its effects are limited to its visual appearance only.

"As [this is] an existing commercial building situated within a local shopping centre, the ATM is not an unusual addition in the context of the building or the street scene."

The cash machine proposal has so far provoked two objections, with one resident warning that it would attract additional noise and nuisance at unsocial hours.

The Keighley News first reported in January that Tesco was looking into establishing its first ever store in Haworth. However, the business had then not revealed the exact site of the proposed shop.

Other local stores in and around Mill Hey include JR Snowden off licence and general store and the Spar store.

A spokesman for JR Snowden declined to comment this week, and no one from Spar had responded by the time the Keighley News went to press.