In 2015 the area of the town centre previously owned by Tesco was bought and taken over by St Modwen in a £35.8m deal. St Modwen revealed expanded plans for the regeneration of the town centre, including a cinema and a new supermarket (coming after the plans for the Tesco store had fallen through) as well as parking and leisure development. This led to reports that two supermarkets were competing to build a store in the town, and it was rumoured that one of those stores was ASDA, who by coincidence were the previous major supermarket in Kirkby, closing in the late 1970s, Kirkby has as a consequence been without a major supermarket for around 40 years. A major public consultation was held with local businesses, shopkeepers and residents in October 2016. In response to this St Modwen submitted a revised application for the town centre regeneration scheme to include the requirements of the foodstore anchor Morrisons who were revealed to be the winning bid to build a store in the town.