Shopowners in the area are reporting a significant drop off in footfall since the supermarket closed last week.

Some retailers estimate the fall in trade could be as high as 70%. They say the grocery outlet acted as a magnet, attracting high numbers of regular customers who would then visit other stores in the vicinity.

"Looking out on the mall you can see there's only a fraction of the numbers we had here previously, " says a spokeswoman for Lowney's furniture shops.

"Everyone's reporting a big fall-off in business. Furniture sales always drop off at this time of year so we can't blame the supermarket. But other shopowners will tell you it's down to the closure.

"Anyone going to Tesco had to walk down the full length of the mall and often their customers would browse around and sometimes wander into different shops. All that has stopped. We're hoping now that a new supermarket will open in that premises."

After five years in business the owner of the Prime Casuals retail store, Muhammed Raza, last week placed a Closing Down sign in the front window.

"Everyday, thousands of people walked past my shop to do their grocery shopping in Tesco. Today the mall is empty. I have had four customers where normally I would have had over a hundred. I have to close."

"In the retail sector, the tenant mix in a shopping centre or retail development is hugely important and great strides are made to ensure that the correct mix of different users with different customer profiles is in place to maximise footfall and dwell time and of course to enhance retail spend figures, " says a spokesperson for property agents CB Richard Ellis.

"Most shopping complexes strive to have a major supermarket as an anchor tenant as this generally acts as a major draw to the location and significantly increases footfall, if the configuration of the development is well designed. Many retailers base their decisions to locate in a particular retail location on the back of the strength or otherwise of the anchor tenant."

"We were sorry to leave Lowney's Mall having been there since 1978, " says a spokesperson for Tesco. "But the site wasn't suited to our existing demands. The move to the new store has been very well received by the vast majority of people in the Wexford area. I think the key point here is that we haven't actually moved very far, just a couple of hundred yards up the road, in fact."