Oswestry21

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.

Only 3 months after Tesco open in Ellesmere, it’s the same story that’s happened everywhere else. Town centre shops all report sharp decline in town footfall and  takings.

Ellesmere, being a centre of canal boating, has been used to boat crew coming into town to buy provisions - where have Tesco built? Bang on the wharf, so boaters can stock up at Tesco and putter on their merry way. And this Saturday, Eden, the fruit and vegetable shop closes - due to lack of business since the Tesco opening. This follows the closure of a mobile phone shop which closed for the same reason. So flown in, chilled and processed veg and fruit replace fresh, local produce, part time jobs replace full time jobs and town centre decline starts to set in.

But of course that never happens, according to King Sturge’s Maggie Godfrey of the Burbidge application. So that’s alright then. We can go back to sleep here in Oswestry.

While it’s a “good thing” that such forums exist, it’s tragic that the response to any need for action is a call for the creation of yet another website and for “more funding”. The web is a Tower of Babel of sites created by funding that once running are no longer edited, managed and updated, and are useless in terms of information anyway, and as for “more funding” - get a grip. We are entering an era where funding for essentials are going to be slashed, let alone vanity schemes and free lunches.

Unless forums like this start to imagine the £15 and £20 pound gallon, the need for realistic local employment to go along with the housing imposed on us by the Core Strategy and the ever greater divide between urban and rural, then they will continue to be just flip chart talking shops. Schemes will have to be pragmatic and pay their way; i.e. they will have to make money without subsidy. Imagination and entrepreneurial skills will have to come to the fore. People will have to come together without self interest and with a common regional aim. The problems beginning to face us are huge and difficult, and will not be solved by paying someone to make yet another unmanaged website and calling for more funding from a rapidly drying well.

This job is currently being advertised on Oswestry Town Council website and in the Tizer. Presumably in market trade magazines also. If you visit the website, a click on the job title will earn you the downloaded details.

While I’m reluctant to turn OS21.com into a job centre, I’m aware that a number of people visit the site who have an interest in the market. Someone may well have the skills required to fit the job description and make the place more businesslike. Have a look and see if it’s you.

The interim lull is nearly over. The N Shrops Unitary planning committee will be decided after this Thursdays elections and a decision, like it or not, WILL be taken.The J Ross scheme is yet to be formally submitted, and there is additional information and adjustment being made to the Smithfield, Burbidge and J T Hughes schemes already submitted, particularly in respect of traffic flow and control.

With regard to the need issue, OS21 has been in contact with the Director of Development Services in Shirehall, Shrewsbury and replies indicate that the new Shropshire Council will not be readily minded to review this situation, thus implying that they are content to rely on information largely collated between 2004 - 2007, and before the certainty that Oswestry will be surrounded by new supermarket retail in Welshpool, Ruabon, Wrexham and Ellesmere.

As things stand, the Smithfield is still just a bad 1980’s retail joke, J T Hughes an opportunist stab in the dark with added traffic concerns, Burbidges a wolf in sheeps clothing - a category killer, edge of town store with potential for mezzanine flooring and no proven linkage to the existing town centre.

The arguments for the Central Car Park, J Ross scheme are that it is central and PPS6 compliant, and that it will, it is hoped, future proof Oswestry from edge and out-of-town supermarket and retail proposals in the near and medium term. It would also be the only scheme which provides any hope of adding to and collaborating with the existing town centre economy.

The arguments against seem mainly to be concerned with town centre disruption during the period of development, pedestrian “permeability” with the town centre and Church St. in particular,  and visual integration and detailing.

Time does not stand still, and a decision will be made. If anyone out there reading this does not want a supermarket, or wishes to request a review of the Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners Retail Survey of Oswestry, then start lobbying very hard for your concerns at new Unitary level, and don’t assume that because this website exists that others are able to carry this forward without your representation. Otherwise pragmatic compromises have to be made with a view to Oswestry town centre’s economic sustainability - not everyone will get what they want, whatever the decision and it’s a bitter shame that no cohesive plan has been put forward for the town that looks at providing EMPLOYMENT first, HOUSING second and then providing RETAIL according to those real and quantifiable needs.

Providing retail first is looking at the whole thing through the wrong end of the telescope, and we will get the town we deserve, rather than the one we might actually want.

Against all expectation, Oswestry’s M&S Simply Food is not on the list, announced today, of 35 branches scheduled to close.

Well, after hoping to lift spirits with a message of a degree of good news reported in the Tizer about good prospects for Premier Bodies in St Martins, Castle Fine Arts recently winning the National Federation of Small Businesses award, and Peter Vidal’s workshop’s Oswestry table (interestingly all in their way creative industries and small businesses), news leaked to OS21 of further shop closures in the town centre in the before the end of the year and early in the New Year does not bode well. 

This is at the very time that the Borough Council Planning Committee will be considering the various supermarket and Retail Park proposals. One can only hope that while they are tucking into the turkey and Christmas pudding they will be sparing a thought for the effect that their decision will have on both the short and long term viability of Oswestry town centre.

Talking of creative industries, why doesn’t Oswestry do more to attract more? There are good examples in Castle Fine Arts and Peter Vidal’s workshop, both of which have national and international reputations. Oswestry has a fine tradition of trades and fabrication going back to when it was a railway town, and these skills are transferable, and we are ideally served by road networks and proximity to the Midlands, North West and Wales.

As Ludlow has become identified with food, Hay on Wye with the book trade, Leominster with antiques, an imaginative initiative could investigate the possibility of attracting small businesses from design, technology and the creative areas. It seems that we need to build on what we already have that gives the town a purpose and identity. It’s not clear that this is recognised at the level of local elected bodies.