Town traders have been warned they must do more to prepare for the opening of a £30 million factory shopping development.

Chairman of Braintree Chamber of Trade, Nick Forsyth, said businesses were not doing enough to draw visitors from the Chapel Hill Factory Village.

The 85-store development could attract up to two million shoppers a year and create about 350 jobs for the area when it opens in November.

Mr Forsyth said: "The factory village will bring a great many people into the town and we want these people to visit the actual centre. Just because they come into Braintree it does not mean they will come and spend money in the High Street. What is being done to make sure they do?

"We need to let people know of our existence. Smaller companies need to be thinking about marketing themselves and individual shops should be co-operating and working together more to make sure visitors want to come here."

In 1997, a shopping impact study carried out by Braintree Council revealed there could be an estimated 19 per cent rise in town centre trade because of the number of people expected to visit on the shuttle service from the factory village.

But this depended on Braintree's ability to market itself and its ability to attract extra shoppers.

Mr Forsyth said: "It is our responsibility to make the town an attractive place to come to and we must work together to make sure it is. If shop-owners want more business and want to keep levels of business up they need to think of new and interesting ways to make themselves stand out."

A web-site promoting Braintree will be launched at a Chamber of Trade meeting next week.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.