Ikea has long held ambitions to open in Lancashire Pic: Gerard Stolk

Ikea was announced as the flagship store at a major new development on the outskirts on Preston yesterday.

The Swedish furniture giant is to finally have a Preston home after rumours of wanting to locate in Lancashire for decades. The current nearest store is at Warrington.

Real estate manager for Ikea Tim Farlam said: “At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. We want to make IKEA accessible to many more people and are very excited to be opening a number of new stores around the UK.

“The Lancashire Cuerden site presents a great opportunity, given its scale, accessibility and location. A new store here would provide people from Lancashire with relevant home furnishing solutions.”

MORE: Ikea coming to Preston

Needless to say, this all has a lot of people very excited with others seeing their weekends flash before their eyes.

One Blog Preston readers said: “I hope our peg (read: wife) never hears about this, Saturdays dragged round Ikea, worst nightmare.”

Another saw the plus side: “Brilliant news, not just for the meatballs and hotdogs, but for employment and the economy! Your (sic) never going to please everyone.”

A recurring theme was concern about the countryside being affected by the plans.

One reader said: “Good for employment but not so good for the countryside. There are far to many huge monstrosities around here as it is, not to mention the traffic chaos!”

Another added: “Has anyone seen the woodlands and pasture land that’s going to be destroyed forever so you can have meatballs at a new Ikea and yet another Starbucks, Costa, Next, Tesco etc?

“We can’t keep concreting over countryside so you can have yet another shopping adventure on a Sunday.

“I live very close to it and the traffic is horrendous now, it will be gridlock like Warrington with another 4000 cars coming and that’s just the employees and then the customers it will be a nightmare.

“No one gives a toss about the displaced Deer that live in the woods where are they going to go?”

How can I have my say on it?

The consultation events take place in the coming days:

Thursday 17 November – South Ribble Borough Council offices, Banqueting Suite, Leyland – 2pm-8pm
Friday 18 November- St Catherine’s Hospice, Garden Room, Cuerden – 2pm-8pm
Saturday 19 November – The Harris, Rotunda Area, Preston – 10am-4pm

You can also view the plans on the This is Cuerden website and people with questions regarding the development can contact the development team on 0800 089 0362 or by emailing info@thisiscuerden.co.uk