PILL businesses and residents' groups are calling for a supermarket to be built on the old cattle market site.

Supermarket giant Morrisons has already voiced an interest in opening a store with attendant filling station, and relocating an ambulance station and a health clinic.

But some traders say Newport city council is "shilly-shallying" over the plan.

"The Raven Group of property developers believe a supermarket is right for the cattle market but are being blocked at every turn.

"We fear that the council wants high density housing on the site," said Darren Stockton, managing director of Cambrian Fuelcard Services and member of an ad hoc committee of Pill businessmen.

"We want something that adds something to Pill rather than takes away. A meeting has been called for the Irish Club in Pill on Wednesday at 5.30pm so that local people and businesses can have their say."

A council spokeswoman said: "An application by an unnamed developer on this site is under consideration."

But Reg Williams, managing director of Prestige Print at Mariners' Green, said "The old cattle market is a clean slate at the moment, but once planning permission is given for housing, as we fear it might be, there will be the devil's own battle to change it. "Now is the chance to act in a way which would truly serve the community."

Another campaigner, Christine Abdie, said that even if shops in Comm-ercial Road were hit by the opening of a supermarket - as some traders feared might happen - the effect would only be in the short term.

"I have a little general dealership and I am prepared to accept we might suffer a slight setback in the short term, but this would be more than offset by an increased general level of prosperity."

Jan Preece, curator of Pill Heritage Centre, said: "We are worried that the council has put plans for the development of this site on a back-burner while it thinks about regenerating the city centre.

"We feel that a supermarket which is allied to the preservation of the historic old market, is something we cannot afford to have go down the pan."

Vincent Donnelly, of Raven development, said the Old Town Dock had been put forward as a rival site for the supermarket.

"We think that Old Town Dock would be fine for housing, but nowhere near as good as the cattle market in terms of bringing the heart of Pill to life.

"The council seems to want a food store as part of the central Newport redevelopment, but are people going to go to a multi-storey to do their major food shopping? People just don't shop that way."