Oswestry21

Over a third strong black coffee and about to hit the work schedule, I heard the following on the Today programme on a piece about the level of retail space vacancies and the disparity between North and South , word for word - “Various serious academics are now suggesting that some towns should be allowed to die……’ and they should “contain fewer shops” and become “discount centres”.

Hold that thought and consider what a supermarket development of the sizes projected in the current applications will do for Oswestry……………

We now understand that Shropshire Council have asked that all four applications be called in, that is - heard together by a planning inspector, probably at a public inquiry. Schedule and dates to be announced.

J Ross have lodged an inevitable appeal against the decision taken at the last Special Planning Committee meeting on the 29th July to turn down their application for a super market development on Central Car Park.

Their appeals can be seen here:The appeals have now appeared on the PINS website:

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/appeals/search/“Search for a Case” using just “Oswestry” as the town brings up:

APP/L3245/A/10/2134748 – the appeal against the main application

APP/L3245/E/10/2134877 – the appeal against the conservation area demolition application.

The Planning Inspectorate have put this down for a “hearing” rather than for formal Public Inquiry. Which is surprising given the level of controversy and public opinion. A hearing would consist of a round table discussion between the appellants and the Planning Inspectorate about the pros and cons of the CCP development. This would appear to mean that a decision either way on CCP could be taken quickly, or it might mean that either J Ross or the Planning Inspectorate might push for a full formal Public Inquiry.

In the meantime the Special Planning Committee could, theoretically, have decided on the other three applications. Their next scheduled meetings are 23 September, 22 October and 18 November.

The schedule for the J Ross appeal hearing seems to be: “start date” is 2 September. By 16 Sep everyone who commented/objected on CCP should have been notified formally by the Council of this appeal. Copies of all those previous comments/objections will be forwarded to Robert Wordsworth, the appeal Inspector. OS21 and Coalition parties need to then submit, no later than 14 October, an electronic copy of any additional statement they wish to make, summarising their case.

A brief summary of the current state of play sifted from a  considerable amount of info. In the interests of clarity, if anyone who has a clearer understanding of the schedule and timings of this appeal process wishes to comment or correct, then please feel free to do so.

So - it ain’t over ’til the well stacked diva bursts into an aria…………………

Cool evening turned to a September night as an expectant hush descended over town. The lights were on in the Memorial Hall. Three candidates, a handful of officials and ooooh, there must have been almost two members of the public present, all to witness the arcane ritual of the opening of the ballot boxes and the tedium of the count.

The eagle eyed leader of Shropshire Council stalked the room as the tension became palpable. The figures counting at the table, and the others, trying to lean nonchalantly against the meagre fittings of the tea bar in the ante chamber, all flourescent lit and resembling characters in an Edward Hopper tableau, silently anticipating a defining moment in political history -  the arrival of an elected representative to Oswestry Town Council who is a) under retirement age, or b) hasn’t served on it for several millennia previously.

Finally, after the chaos of piles of loose ballot papers became neatly paper clipped sheaves and were then counted and checked - the result! By a considerable margin, young whipper snapper Saffron Rainey stands as a beacon of local aspiration, straddling the century between the patrician but engaged Conservatism of the past, and what one can rather desperately hope, in the light of the current national administration,  might be the enlightened and forward thinking Conservatism for the 21st century.

As the round of applause grew to a deafening crescendo, lights in the soon to be felled cherry trees in the Red Square suddenly beamed out, and street lights from Morda to Gledrid roundabout flashed on and off in time to the beat of “Things - can only get better………” by D-ream pulsing out through a massive sound system temporarily installed on the roof of the Memorial Hall.

Throughout town, bedroom windows were flung open and bleary eyed citizens shouted “What the @*$*???!!! If that’s Gibbos or the Ironworks again, I’m phoning the bloody Council in the morning and getting the bastards shut down……………”

Good luck Mr Rainey, may you blaze a trail for a new, younger generation of non partisan and contemporary thinking councillors that is so desperately required.

Tescopoly reports that in its Coalition Agreement the new Government committed to introducing “an Ombudsman in the Office of Fair Trading who can proactively enforce the Grocery Supply Code of Practice and curb abuses of power, which undermine our farmers and act against the long-term interest of consumers.”

Tescopoly and other consumer groups will be pushing to ensure that the Ombudsman has powers to undertake pro-active investigations and receive complaints from indirect supermarket suppliers (farmers) and via trade associations.

Perhaps abuses of power by developers could also be looked at.

D day tomorrow. Decision or Deferral? After two years of debate since the Town Council/OCA Smithfield shambles first came to light, during which Oswestry has become encircled by Tesco in every neighbouring town,  the Strategic Planning Committee meets at the Lion Quays tomorrow afternoon to decide whether Oswestry is to become another clone town/ghost town and become one of the last to clamber aboard the sinking ship of supermarket over-provision, or whether it can have some self belief in its own economy and community and offer the rare opportunity to inhabitants and visitors alike to experience what it is to be a market town.

All the current applications were visualised in a very different economic climate to that which we are now experiencing. All are based on a need argument set out by Nathaniel Lichfield Partners which have been steadily and incrementally reduced since 2007 to a shadow of their initial findings. Petrol costs are rising, food miles and local food issues are now common components of newspaper articles and news items. And realisation that true leakage is the leakage from the local economy created by supermarkets is now common knowledge.

All the applications facing the Strategic Planning Committee are either far too large or too far out of town, or both. All will affect the town, independent traders, the community, and drain the local economy. Until real need in the form of sensible creation of employment land for real long term and decently paid jobs and the subsequent building of housing in the locality is in place, there is no need for further supermarket presence in a small market town that already has Sainsburys, ALDI, Morrisons, M & S; S, Iceland, and the various other outlets that provide food retail that have opened recently.

Here’s to a sane and pragmatic decision to either refuse all four applications or to defer a decision until such time as scale is appropriate to need. The desperation evidenced by developers in recent days says far more about their need to make the bucks than it does about any consideration for the town’s need to continue as an economic community.

Twist or bust.

It’s been known for a while that someone has created a fake oswestry21 website which is “vehemently opposed to the activities of oswestry21″, and thus, presumably,  is vehemently opposed to discussion of any kind of sustainability issues. But it’s mention on Radio Shropshire yesterday morning bought it to public notice.

The site was registerd by an I. Packington, and displays a delightfully inappropriate photograph of what seems to be a small continental harbour drenched in sunlight. It has a couple of links to pro supermarket articles, and appears to be collecting names and post codes which are claimed to be being sent to Oswestry Town Council.  OTC must be baffled as to what to do with this limited information, as it’s hands are tied in any planning decision regarding the supermarkets as they are interested parties on two counts - as landowners of both the Smithfield and the Central Car Park. Nice photo though.