RESIDENTS living on Salisbury's Bishopdown Farm estate claim supermarket giant Asda has got its sums wrong.

Asda said last week that it was encouraged by the public response to a two-day exhibition revealing its plans to build an Asda store on land it owns off Pearce Way, near the Hampton Park roundabout.

The company said that 700 people attended the exhibition and took part in two consultation exercises.

It said the survey revealed that 873 people were in support of a new Asda store and 131 against.

But this week, Janet McCarraher, chairman of the Bishopdown Farm Residents' Association, said the group had attended the exhibition and taken a verbal poll of the attendees.

She said: "Our conclusion was that approximately half were for and half against the food store development - not 873 for and 131 against, with an attendance of 700, as claimed by Asda."

The association points out that the presentation of Asda's plans were in full colour and fully landscaped, whereas the plans for a warehouse development - the site already has planning permission for a non-food use - were in black and white, with minimal landscaping.

Mrs McCarraher said: "Our main concern is the lack of car-parking space.

"Our research shows that, at Tesco's Southampton Road store, there is parking for 520 customers and 73 staff, and Waitrose has 882 customer parking spaces and 75 for staff.

"Asda is planning 398 customer parking spaces but no parking for staff.

"Once the car park is full, parking could be over the residential estate, along Pearce Way and into the Bishopdown pub car park."

The association fears that a food supermarket would attract 2,450 car movements each day along the London Road.

They say customers attending a warehouse development would not be so intense, or continuous, traffic movements would be far fewer, and instances of "wandering trolleys" would be greatly reduced.

Mrs McCarraher said: "In other words, an Asda foodstore is not the answer to meet the needs of Salisbury."