Mr McKenzie said as soon as planning permission was granted work would begin "immediately" on an ASDA store, cinema and restaurants complex.

"It would create 200 construction jobs right away and 250 permanent jobs on completion," said the Larne man.

"I have had literally hundreds of contractors and construction workers ringing my office saying their work has dried up and asking when we'll be ready to start because they know there's two or three years' work ahead of us here.

"I have to tell them it's all subject to planning permission and while the application is going well - because we've supplied absolutely everything that we've been asked for - there are people in the town who are doing everything they can to hold things up.

"It's time these people woke up and realized there's a credit crunch, a crisis in the construction industry and here's a project that will provide jobs straight away and give people in Larne what they want, which is a major food retailer and an entertainment complex in their own town."

Larne Traders' Forum opposes the Redlands development - and others in the planning process - which it considers to be edge-of-town. Both the forum and Larne Borough Council are resolved to support draft planning policy statement 5 - which favours development from existing town centres outwards - and have urged that no major decisions be taken until the Department for Social Development produces a Larne masterplan, which is due before the end of the year.

Mr McKenzie claimed he was aware that one influential lobbyist had declared the Redlands scheme would proceed "over their dead body".

He said, "I have confidence in the Planning Service, but we are having to deal with a lobby that is very much opposed and never mind all the jobs that would be created when there is a credit crunch.

"We have the support of individual councillors and MLAs and 99.9 per cent of the people in Larne," Mr McKenzie claimed. "Why are the council and the traders' forum not letting them have their say?" he asked.