Victoria NichollsA public inquiry into Tesco's controversial bid to build a supermarket in Halesworth is under way.Following a year of battling by supporters and objectors, an independent inspector will make the decision on the application.Victoria Nicholls

A public inquiry into Tesco's controversial bid to build a supermarket in Halesworth is under way.

Following a year of battling by supporters and objectors, an independent inspector will make the decision on the application.

Tesco supporters say the store, which it wants to build off Angel Link, will breathe new life in the town, while campaigners against it say they need to protect small independent traders.

Patrick Clarkson QC, for Tesco, said a new store would improve the attraction of Halesworth as a place to shop, adding: 'It will provide competition and choice and stop shoppers having to travel from the natural catchment area to towns further away.'

But a Waveney District Council spokesman said: 'Not only is the proposed floorspace unnecessarily in excess of that which is required… it will have an unacceptably detrimental impact on the vitality and viability of the town centre and surrounding rural communities.'

Tesco also owns land known as the Thoroughfare site, just off the pedestrianised part of the town centre, which has outline planning permission for a foodstore, but the supermarket giant says it is subject to severe flood constraints and private rights. If given planning permission for the Angel Link site, Tesco proposes that a property group will take on the Thoroughfare site for development.

Andrew Jones, speaking for Save Halesworth, said the main line of argument was: '...that this supermarket is not needed, that in scale it is wholly inappropriate, and that the promised accompaniment on the sequentially preferable Thoroughfare site, a remodelling of our town centre, is fantasy and aberration.'

Anglia Regional Co-op submitted proposals to Waveney in February 2009 for an extension to its store on Saxons Way, which was followed in May by Tesco's application. The council opted to consider the applications at the same time, but a delay led both supermarkets to lodge appeals with the Planning Inspectorate against Waveney after it failed to make a decision within the 13-week timeframe.

A vote by district councillors afterwards showed they would have rejected both schemes. Anglia Regional Co-op has since withdrawn its appeal but resubmitted plans to Waveney, who will decide on its application. An Anglia Regional Co-op spokesman told the inquiry: 'Tesco's proposal for an additional large superstore in the town is a wholly inappropriate response to the policy objective of increasing the self-containment of Halesworth.'

The inspector is expected to reach a decision seven weeks after the completion of the inquiry, which is being held at the Orbis Centre in Lowestoft.