A warning to Shropshire planning officers of things to come in Oswestry?
“It appears to us that Tesco is adept at making monkeys of planning authorities. We have cited examples that show their cavalier disregard for conditions imposed to protect other local businesses in other areas and it seems to us they are doing the same here,” says John Hall, Chairman of Shop in the Loop, which represents Shrewsbury town centre.
The Shrewsbury Chronicle, July 29
A view from Shelf Bank of the Burbidge site, containing five historic and largely hidden Cambrian Railways buildings
As previously reported here, the Burbidge /Tesco’s application for a new superstore continues to ignore genuine concerns from the Cambrian Heritage Railway about just where and how any cycle/walkway can allow access from the superstore to the town.
However, the applicants also assumed that it is perfectly acceptable to knock down as many as 5 historic railway buildings, which together are of historical and social significance as developed over the 100 year history of the Cambrian Railways and shaping Oswestry as a town.
The early dawns, summer’s fleeting arrival, the scent of bluebells and lilac in the air may all help to remind us that this year’s long winter may be over. In the distance the drums of the developers can still be heard by those who listen for them. A flurry of activity over the past two weeks from the four developers is our signal that life returns to the campaign. So what the News Desk asked itself last night was, does OS21 make a difference?
Reading through pages of new submissions you will not see reference to OS21 but you will, if you have as we have, become students of the planning process see the effects OS21 has had on the debate.
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.
This simple Google search gives interesting results.
The Oswestry site, from reading Taylor Young’s work log, will either be an extension of an existing building or a new building on land to be acquired. The Chirk site, from the log, seems to be the more advanced of the two plans and also the more complex. It appears to have gone through 5 revisions to date, which compares to the Oswestry site’s single version. The Chirk site also has structural reports with the architectural reports, whereas the Oswestry plans at this stage only have architectural reports. The Chirk site is, we would suggest, more advanced than the Oswestry site also as the architects have completed a Flood Risk Assessment (on the 24th February this year). We are informed that this is a necessary formality in advance of applying for full planning permission.
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Richard Burbidge Ltd
www.richardburbidge.com Whittington Road Get directions - Is this accurate? Bus: Oswestry, Unicorn Road Jct (adj: unmarked) Write a review |
Richard Burbidge CHIRK. CURRENT UPLOAD LOG … 107, Architect, Final Survey Drawings (by Survey Operations Jan10) - Survey Chirk - Roof Plans, 25/01/2010 …
www.drawingexchange.co.uk/form.asp?site=5078 - Cached
4926-Richard Burbidge Relocation, Raise Ticket · View Log, upload. 5078-Richard Burbidge CHIRK, Raise Ticket · View Log, upload.
www.drawingexchange.co.uk/ - Cached
The recommendations of the planning officers have at last been published, revealing that they favour the Burbidge/Tesco application, subject to further study of the Ross application for Central Car Park (being the sequentially-preferred site). In spite of the rather obvious fact that the JT Hughes site is closer to the town centre than Burbidge/Tesco, Smithfield and JT Hughes are both rejected as being out-of-town.
This website has had its fair share of hysterical and accusatory comments about the 300 local jobs that could be lost should Burbidge fail in its bid. Could Burbidge confirm their long term commitment to manufacturing their products within the Oswestry area?
In September last year Richard Burbidge bought Canal Wood Industrial Estate in Chirk. An ex-employee has informed this site that there is a widely held assumption that the company’s long term plan is to move their entire production to Chirk. There are clear advantages to this move - they will receive a premium price for their land in Oswestry and have the possibility of a generous relocation grant for moving into Wales.
In her letter in the Advertizer (February 23) Maggie Godfrey of MG Planning, the planning consultants for Richard Burbidge’s proposed Tesco superstore, produced some misleading figures about the proposed Oswestry superstores, that demand correction.
· Her claim that 30% of local people from the town’s core catchment population do not shop in Oswestry is a myth. Shropshire Council’s advisers Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP) say only 17% of the core catchment population in and around Oswestry do not do their grocery shopping there. For Oswestry town itself, the figure is only 10%, which is not unusual.
· The headline results of the recent Skillsmart survey, showing that 78% of Oswestry shoppers don’t want a new supermarket, were out before Christmas and the full report is now available from Shropshire Council. A sample size of 100 in each area is quite normal in such surveys including the NLP survey mentioned above.
· Maggie Godfrey’s figure of 2,620 sq m net floorspace for Sainsbury’s includes checkouts, but the Burbidge/Tesco figure of 3,313 sq m net excludes them. The equivalent figure for Burbidge/Tesco is at least 3,726 sq m. This is 42% bigger than Sainsbury’s, not the 26% claimed. It is about twice as big as the new Tesco store at Ellesmere. Felix Gummer, Tesco’s representative for the area, has even stated that the proposed store could accommodate a mezzanine floor, which would increase the floorspace substantially.
NLP have just reduced their original 2007 assessment of the “need” for more grocery space now in Oswestry by 62%. For planning purposes local authorities still have to demonstrate “need” but, since the rules changed in December, applicants do not.
The key test for them is “impact”. The impact assessment accompanying the Burbidge planning application purported to show that their development would, by 2013, take only 16% of its trade from existing Oswestry shops, representing lost takings of £5.6million (3.4%) to the town’s shops. NLP, the council’s advisers, disagree and think the proposed Tesco superstore could actually take 67% of its trade from the town, representing lost takings of £26.6million (16%).
The statistics are clear. A Tesco superstore at Burbidge would be highly damaging to Oswestry’s town centre and its future as a market town.
OS21
IS A GROUP DEDICATED TO PROMOTING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OF OSWESTRY IN THE
21ST CENTURY
