Businesses and traders will fight a second bid by developers to bring shopping on to the £40 million Vicar Lane leisure scheme.

Developers of the Leisure Exchange, JJ Gallagher, want to fill the last unit of the scheme - originally planned for health and fitness - with a shopping unit.

It is likely to be a retail warehouse-type unit like the shops in Forster Square Retail Park.

But Bradford Chamber of Trade, Bradford Retail Action Group and Bradford Chamber of Commerce are planning to lodge official protests with Bradford Council to a planning application for shopping in the 40,000-square-foot unit.

A multi-screen cinema, Frankie & Benny's and Pizza Hut have already opened on the Vicar Lane scheme and a hotel operator is due to move in.

A Hollywood Bowl is also one of the main attractions on the development which opened at the end of last year.

But businesses and traders say they fear the planned £200 million Broadway shopping redevelopment would be hit if shopping was allowed in Vicar Lane.

Work on the Broadway scheme is expected to start next year and so far there have been no challenges to a decision by a public inquiry approving the compulsory purchase of about 80 properties to make way for the scheme.

In February an application by Gallaghers for shopping in the units - because it was unable to attract a health and fitness operator - was rejected by Bradford Area Planning Panel by one vote because members feared for its impact on the city centre.

This time the company has told planning officers it would not split the unit into individual areas without prior permission.

But Jeff Frankel, chairman of Bradford Retail Action Group, said: "We feel the central shopping area should not spread out any further and that this might jeopardise the Broadway scheme.

"We need another warehouse in the periphery of the city centre like a hole in the head."

But Paul Cross, managing director of J J Gallagher, said his company had been unable to fill the unit in the nine months since the development was opened and the type of shopping it was expected to attract would not compete with any retail in the city centre.