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.

Press release from the CPRE today 4th March. It can be done! Oswestry next, where Shropshire Council equally needs, in the light of PPS4, to “to look at the size of stores in terms of gross floor space and impact on the wider local economy”.

 

In response to today’s landmark decision to prevent a new Supermarket development in the centre of the largely unspoiled sea side town of Sheringham, James Frost, Director of CPRE Norfolk, says:

 

“This is a brave and important decision. It shows that local authorities can resist the market power and muscle of the largest retailers and fight for the right decisions to be made to prevent the wrong development taking place. This decision offers hope to many other towns fighting similar proposals for more large supermarkets.

 

“The alternative decision in favour of the Greenhouse Community Project also has its challenges but it does offer a joined-up 21^st century approach to food sourcing, education and retail. The meeting today heard from young people, schoolteachers and members of the local community who all see the unique opportunity that the project offers. It’s a victory for local food networks and a victory for local democracy.

 

“The Tesco store has always been too large for Sheringham and would have caused a serious impact on local traders, the town centre and tourism.  Sheringham has been a test case for the new planning policy statement PPS4 which asks councils to look at the size of stores in terms of gross floor space and impact on the wider local economy. Once again, Tesco have fallen short.”

 

Shoppers in Oswestry queued up on Saturday 20 February to sign letters opposing plans for any more superstores to be built in the town. Objection letters flowed in at a rate of more than one every minute, as townspeople said a resounding ‘NO’ to the proposed plans.

Most people are convinced that another big superstore will spell the end for the town centre. Dozens suggested that local planners should concentrate their efforts on improving the town centre by attracting complementary new businesses, such as shops selling clothing for adults and children, DVDs, and hiking gear, to retail premises that are currently empty. There is widespread support for a cinema, but many people want this to be a state of the art and well run digital cinema that isn’t subsidised by a supermarket for a limited number of years. And one sited in the town centre in or on existing vacant premises, such as the car showrooms in Lower Brook Street or Willow Street. This would contribute to the variety and vibrancy of the night time economy in town.

Most of the shoppers who signed the letter were from Oswestry and surrounding villages, but one-fifth were from Wrexham, Shrewsbury or further afield. Shoppers from Wrexham or Shrewsbury said that they regularly came to Oswestry because of the bustling town centre, local shops and Saturday market. Most voiced the opinion that both Wrexham and Shrewsbury town centres had been ruined by the arrival of superstores, and subsequent closure of independent shops.  This was also reported in the weeks before Christmas, when some independents said that 40% of their customers came from other neighbouring towns, saying that they had to come to Oswestry, because they couldn’t get the quality or choice of presents in their own supermarket dominated towns.

The campaign is being organised by ‘Keep Our Town Special’, a coalition working for sensitive, sustainable developments that will keep the heart in Oswestry, and help the town to flourish. 

Headlines such as “Tesco enjoy best Christmas in three years” and “Cut price ASDA slices through the recession” are doubtless heartening to shareholders, but behind the figures lies a more depressing story for shoppers.

“Supermarket giants Tesco and Asda dramatically increased prices on key items in the runup to Christmas in what an independent expert has called “a systematic, cynical and aggressive attempt to exploit demand”, a Guardian investigation can reveal. Batteries, lightbulbs, medicines, Christmas drinks and must-have children’s toys were among essentials whose prices were increased.

Both companies ran marketing campaigns before Christmas and at New Year boasting of thousands of price cuts but many consumers will have been unaware that they were also raising thousands of prices in the same period”. (Systematic, cynical, aggressive’: expert verdict on Tesco & Asda prices. Guardian, Feb. 12th 2010)

While supermarkets are keen to trumpet the price falls in 1000’s of selected Christmas “essentials” The Guardian reports on a third party retail survey (”We used data compiled by third party analysts from the Asda and Tesco online stores to show how many price rises were imposed between December 9 and December 22″) of prices in Tesco and ASDA which reveal 1000’s of price rises between the 9th and 22nd December ‘09. While the price falls hyped by supermarkets often fall into the bracket of a matter of pence, the price rises in the case of ASDA range from 455.5% to a fraction of a percentage over a range of 2059 items, and in the case of Tesco from 158% to a fraction of a percentage over a range of 1578 items.

In the article: “How supermarkets can cut ‘thousands of prices’ but your bills may go up” by Felicity Lawrence, Guardian, Friday 12th Feb 2010, Professor of Retailing Paul Dobson of Loughborough University, who has been conducting a five year study of prices at the big 4 -Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA & Morrisons said: “Retailers are happy to tell us about their price cuts but they forget to tell us about the price rises. We keep hearing about a price war but it’s the most curious price war I’ve ever heard of, where you can’t detect an overall drop in price levels or a fall in profits.”As anyone knows, you don’t make money by being generous. And if you do by appearing to be so, then it’s achieved by sleight of hand.

 

As the Civic Society, CPRE, Chamber of Trade and OS21 coalition poster and leafletting campaign starts to become apparent, here’s a reminder of what a busy town market can look like. And hey! It’s Oswestry 18 years ago in 1992. Not only is it interesting to see how many stalls there are, both in the Horsemarket and the Bailey square, but it’s interesting to see that only 18 years ago people were prepared to get off their arses and actually walk 200 yards from the Oak St. car park to the Powis Hall. One of the moans about having a bigger market and more stalls now is “But where will everyone park?”. Oak St. car park! Get a bit of excercise why not, while you go and buy fresh food at the Powis Hall! The walk can’t be any longer than the walk from the end of a superstore car park to the sliding doors.

Markets have a future: market town centre regeneration, local food hubs, supporters of local food suppliers, small business start ups, food miles, social cohesion, shopping as a social experience, tourism, wide variety and choice, value, quality, food provenance and knowledge ……. endless reasons why the direction that the economy is heading and the forces that are shaping society both cry out for active investment in, and management and promotion of town markets.

And until councils and highway authorities start to realise that town centres are for people, and people have legs, then we will continue to destroy town centre vitality by building supermarket retail parks with vast car parks where shoppers are happy to traipse about all day for miles, but claim that walking 200 yds in a town centre is too far.

 

 

The time for outlining the arguments against further supermarket retail in Oswestry is running out, and the arguments are so self evident that they become rapidly repetitive. The pages of this site, going back almost 2 years, are full of them.

 

It’s plain that Oswestry as a town and economic entity does not  need another supermarket, at this time, wherever it is sited. Any such development will affect the town as a whole and further erode it’s viability as a market town and erode it’s character.

 

It becomes harder and harder to find local people who think further large scale retail development is a good idea. The evidence from other towns is too hard to ignore.

 

A cinema is held out as a carrot by three of the developers, as if a supermarket is the only way a cinema can be possible. And yet in Wem, there is a new digital cinema, appropriate to the scale and needs of the town, in the newly refurbished town hall. Enlightened and bold thinking, and possible if there were enlightened and bold thinkers among our own elected representatives.

 

A decision about the four retail planning applications looks like being made on March the 18th.

 

We would urge anyone with any passion, interest in the town, anger as to how decisions are made and just plain doubt about further supermarket development in Oswestry to write expressing their views, to the following addressees, quoting the relevant planning ref. numbers and development sites. It’s the work of half an hour and the cost of three stamps.

 

OS/08/15788/OUT – Oswestry Smithfield Livestock Market, Liberty Mercian and Oswestry Cattlemarket Auctioneers, submitted 1 October 2008.

 

OS/09/15868/OUT – J T Hughes/Guttercrest Oswestry submitted by Les Stephan Planning Ltd, Shrewsbury on 19 December 2008.

 

OS/09/15869/OUT – Richard Burbidge Ltd, Retail and Leisure Assessment by King

Sturge (KS), Manchester, submitted 5 January 2009.

 

OS/09/02082/FUL – Central Car Park, J Ross Developments, submitted 11 August 2009

 

 

Owen Paterson MP

House of Commons

London

SW1AA OAA

 

Nick Taylor

Director

Strategy & Development

Development Services

Shropshire Council

Shirehall

Shrewsbury

Shropshire

SY2 6ND

 

Cllr. John Everall

Chair

Strategic Planning Committee

Shropshire Council

Shirehall

Shrewsbury

Shropshire

SY2 6ND

 

A considerable number of people ask what they can do – well here is something they can do, and now is the time to start doing it before the 18th March. Ask your friends, family and neighbours to do the same if they share your concerns for the future of Oswestry, as a market town and as a community.

The following contributed by Andrew Tullo. Excellent news for Oswestry, in terms of town promotion, tourism and sustainable transport. And shows what can be achieved by a group of committed individuals working together.  

On last Friday’s cold November evening over 100 members of the Cambrian Railways Society and the Cambrian Railways Trust crowded into Oswestry’s Station building  for a meeting convened by Nigel Davies of the Cross Border Tourism Development Group.

 

They were there to hear Rob Williams (Society Chair) and Henry Thomas (Trust Chair) give persuasive accounts of why it was time that the two groups take the further step of merging into one organization called the Cambrian Heritage Railways Ltd.(CHR)

In separate and simultaneous EGMs both groups then voted overwhelmingly to take this advice.

 

The CHR  will be a larger but leaner  group which can pool resources, avoid duplication and apply for much larger grants than has previously been the case, which will certainly be  required to achieve the goal laid out in the 2009 Railway Project  Plan ie;

 

To reopen the entire 7 mile length of line between Gobowen through Oswestry to Llynclys with the branch line to Blodwell, and create a railway heritage attraction unique in the UK.

Collaboration has meanwhile been established with the Shropshire Wildlife Trust to strike a balance between clearing the track and making it safe, whilst maintaining it as a ‘green corridor’.

There has already been loads of activity on the line this summer. Volunteers have been hard at work to clear the track to establish just what needs to be done to get trains running again north of Llynclys.

Only a week ago Shropshire Council and the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers joined Society and Trust members in a major litter pick in Oswestry Station area.

There is a growing belief that the Railway is going places and can once again achieve a real and lasting impact on the economy and viability of this Railway Town.

Asked what we are likely to see in 2010, Henry Thomas confirmed;

·      building a ‘halt’ at Penygarreg Lane just north of Pant, so that passengers can alight and walk the short distance to the nearby Montgomery Canal. This will make an historic link with other features of the area’s rich industrial past.

·      work on a shed down at Llynclys which has just begun to house rolling stock and allow important restoration work on wagons and carriages to continue throughout the year.

·      trains to run by Easter in the Oswestry Station area which is being tidied and will complement the developments planned for the Town Green.

Meanwhile, local people are encouraged to visit the Station Building for more information and to use Buffers the new café and restaurant.

Oswestry has reason to be chuff, chuff, chuffed at the prospects…

www.cambrianrailwaystrust.com and www.cambrianrailwayssociety.co.uk