START: Work on Featherston's new supermarket begins on Monday.
START: Work on Featherston's new supermarket begins on Monday.
Featherston should experience "minimal" disruption in trading during the six months it will take to build the new Featherston supermarket and cafe, says Trust House chief executive Allan Pollard.
The $2.5 million project begins with breaking of the ground on Monday morning.
Mr Pollard said the bottle store, cafe andpost shop will be the last things to go, to minimise disruption for their staff and customers.
He said a lot of work is able to be done off-site, and the new building can be built over existing buildings for a time.
"It's quite clever - the supermarket will still be there, and we can knock through one of the walls. We've tried as much as we can to limit any kind of close-down of the supermarket," said Mr Pollard. "We don't envisage staff losing any hours."
He said they were aware the community valued their shops, and wanted to keep things functioning as much as they could. He said there should be no road closures during the six months, and the skate park would be unaffected.
The project was made possible by swapping Trust House land - a vacant site east of the supermarket - with council-owned land upon which the 4-square supermarket, post shop, cafe and bottle store currently sit.
South Wairarapa District Council hope to use the swapped vacant land to create a town square for Featherston.
