Oswestry21

There was an Oswestry Chamber of Trade meeting at the Wynnstay on Wednesday to attend yet more presentations by two of the supermarket developers. J Ross for the Central Car Park and Vernons/King Sturge for Burbidges. A small number of traders, some of them from the same businesses, so not entirely a representative body of Oswestry independent trading community, but well done to those who turned out.

There wasn’t really anything that anyone who had attended previous presentations hadn’t heard already. Vernons have scrapped the DIY and other comparison goods outlets aspects of their presentation. Felix Gummer of Tesco authoritatively informed us that the Tesco building on offer was high enough to accommodate a mezzanine floor - but that there wouldn’t be one as it would involve a further future planning application. Quite why this was implied to be beyond the scope of Tesco in the case of Oswestry was left unexplained. He also stated that there would be no pharmacy in the Burbidge Tesco as it was too small. Again, in the event of a successful application, time will doubtless tell. Maggie Godfrey of King Sturge reiterated once more that a Tesco store in Oswestry would have no effect on independent traders, while giving the impression of staying aloft while flying in the face of all evidence to the contrary elsewhere. There was some flak and antagonism, not to mention disbelief, regarding much of the presentation.

J Ross were keen to big up the PPS6, town-centre-first aspects of the Central Car Park scheme, and also endeavoured to allay fears about disruption and parking issues. However well and how often these are explained, these factors will continue to be the cause of fears for all town centre traders. There were also concerns about scale, as indeed there were about Burbidges, particularly set against the latest NLP figures for current retail need which are around 20,000 sq. ft. gross, as opposed to the just under 60,000 sq. ft. of Burbidges and the over 60,000 sq. ft. footprint of the Central Car Park. NLP analysis of the current schemes MAY have an effect upon these figures. The argument for larger scale of supermarket is that it will “future proof” the town against further supermarket development……..

The presentations were followed by a discussion among the few who were present, during which many of the issues that readers of this site would be very familiar with were raised. And a vote was taken. There were no votes for the Burbidge scheme, 9 votes for no supermarket development at all, and 9 votes for a Central Car Park development. Which seemed a fair result. But a further vote was taken on which scheme would be preferred if no supermarket at all was not an option, and there was a majority vote in favour of the Central Car Park.

So not a resounding fanfare of support, but a qualified result for what seems to be perceived as a least worst option. And perhaps fairer to have sat through presentations by all four schemes, or none at all and had a discussion based on the considerable information available on all four.

Is this minute number of members of the trading community actually representative of the business community at large? Why so few? Is it apathy? Is it the structure of the Chamber of Trade? Either way it’s a fairer manifestation of democracy than a similar number of elected representatives cooking up the Smithfield scheme behind closed doors and presenting it as a “fait accomplis”.

I suppose it was an example of the low flickering flame of local democracy in action, and as such deserves a smattering of applause. Good for everyone who made the effort, traders and developers alike. How we make democracy more of a practice, rather than a  vague, woolly and somehow comforting concept that we safely feel we can afford to take no part in is a different matter.

Excellent coverage tonight on the front page of the Shropshire Star of the CPRE report on whether Oswestry needs any new retail development outside the town centre. Many thanks to Iain St. John for coming to last nights meeting, covering the event and picking up on this particular story, I will put a link up to the latest version of the CPRE report as soon as I can, but it makes clear the arguments against retail development on the sites concerning the three current planning applications, Smithfield, Burbidge and J T Hughes.

The link is here >CPRE report updated July 2009 

It is also interesting to consider that at the time of Sainsburys coming to Oswestry, 15 years ago, the Five Acre Site (Village Green) was considered by developers a suitable for retail/supermarket development, but was turned down by planners at the time as being too far from the town centre.  During those 15 years, concerns have grown, just as evidence has, about the effect of out of town supermarkets upon town centres and particularly those of market towns - this in turn has coloured government guidlines on out of town retail development in such document as PPS6 - Planning Policy Statement 6 - Planning for Town Centres, which states in para. 2.44:

A sequential approach should be applied in selecting appropriate sites for allocation within the centres where identified need is to be met.All options in the centre (including,where necessary,the extension of the centre) should be thoroughly assessed before less central sites are considered for development for main town centre uses.

It is clear that neither the Smithfield, nor Burbidges, nor J T Hughes, have moved closer into town centre in the last 15 years than the 5 Acre Site that was deemed unsuitable on grounds of distance at that time. If such sites were at too great a distance from the town centre for retail development then, why are they being considered now when 15 years of evidence of damage to town centre economies and vitality have been witnessed since then?

PPS6 also states that sites should be suitable, viable and available. In the case of the Central Car Park, the fact that the Town Council is seeking to, (or has done so), extend it’s lock-in agreement with Liberty Mercian (Smithfield developers) concerning no retail development upon the Central Car Park until 2018 instead of the existing 2014, seems to suggest that both the Town Council and Liberty Mercian feel threatened by the suitability and viability arguments for a town centre development, and appear as a result to have sought to counter this threat by closing down the availability by gratuitous and artificial means.

The Strategic Planning Committee is meeting in Sept/Oct on these matters, and “It is the intention to approve only one application” says Mr Tim Rogers, Principal planning Officer, North West Area, Shropshire Council. Well God help ‘em, it’ll all end in tears and Judicial Reviews, and as the CPRE document says do we actually need out of town retail development at all?

Well, presentations of the three current applications have been put before the Special Development Control Committee. All were characterised by laughable overuse of the word “sustainable”, all got the violins out for the future of OCA, JT Hughes/Guttercrest and Burbidges respectively (notably no violins for the town centre), and Liberty Mercian and Vernons seemed sufficiently rattled by a potential Central Car Park proposal to forget about kicking each other and to jointly give the Central Car Park site a kicking instead.

The Smithfield doesn’t appear to have an operator on board, (though rumours persist of Tesco backing all horses - God knows they’ve been seen to be desperate enough for the Oswestry £ in the past, so why so coy now?), nor did the spokesman have answers as to who might occupy the other retail units, but made much of having a DIY operator interested, as if we can’t trip over DIY outlets already. The free bus service will operate for 5 years, with unspecified funding after that period. Mention of bus stops made considerable mention of on site bus stops at the Smithfield, but town bus stops were left off the Liberty Mercian drawings as they would have made the drawing “far too detailed”. Well…… indeed. A slick presentation that glossed over the “no operator” issue, and the implication that potential occupiers would seem to share the opinion that this ridiculous and out-dated out-of-town development is a dead duck.

The local team, J T Hughes/Guttercrest, made much of “architectural opportunity”, “unique site”, “sustainable development(!)”, “gateway design statement” etc etc. And to be fair, it seems apparent that considerable thought has gone into these issues, and also tha- a successful traffic solution to this awkward junction has been seen as being essential to the proposal. Despite all reassurances, it would take a real life scenario to demonstrate whether a roundabout at the junction of two of the main roads into town, with truck deliveries, branches off to a supermarket,  to the cemetery, close to the garage, and adjacent to the blind bend on the railway bridge would actually work as described. James Evans of Samuel Wood Commercial rightly spoke of the devastation to Wrexham town centre since the coming of Eagles Meadow, but made the curious claim that the J T Hughes/Guttercrest supermarket would have a role in “control and protection of the town and town centre” without substantiating quite how an “out of centre” (Nathaniel Lichfield Retail Survey) would succeed in doing this. Considerable woolliness about re-location of existing businesses and the time scale of this and thus of delivery.

The Vernons/Burbidge/King Sturge presentation reflected the confidence of the only developer with a named operator on board. Much made of public consultation, permeability and linkage with the town centre and “improved” traffic flow, despite the odd situation on Whittington Road described in a post below. Described emphatically as “edge-of-town” despite the Nathaniel Lichfield tablet of stone that all three developers cling to so enthusiastically describing all three sites as “out of centre”. No mention of future mezzanine with the 20,000-25,000 sq. ft. added retail space that that would provide. King Sturge’s spokeswoman claims that “Tesco is unlikely to draw trade from traditional and independent shops in the town centre”, which flies in the face of all evidence to the contrary over the UK over the last 20+ years, so how Oswestry town centre independents, of all in the country, are going to flourish in the shadow of a potential “category killer” store was left unclear. Perhaps the Special Development Control Committee would like to ask. The Tesco’s as applied for at this date will be 60% food and 30% comparison goods, 23% larger than Sainsbury’s, and the car park will be “basically free” - err…….. how basically? Free or not free? Big claims for environmental issues and the building having the potential to be Tesco’s 2nd environmentally friendly store. This does not ring many bells with those who feel that the “green industry” is just a means of enabling us all to live in the manner to which we have become accustomed, and not actually encouraging us to face up to the reality of living with less, consuming less, eating less, wasting less etc. etc. in a world of finite and declining resources.

Questions that should be asked by the Special Dev. Control Committee should include those concerning plans for future mezzanines with the potential for expanding retail space in any of these stores by up to 30%, how any of these “out-of-centre” (Nathaniel Lichfield) schemes guarantee to regenerate a town centre already described as “dead” by some councillors. Councillors should also ask whether town centre vitality is important enough for developers to bias their linkages and transport systems with the town in order to favour inward bound trips rather than outward bound supermarket trips. There are any number of extremely pertinent questions that require clear answers, and perhaps readers would like to assist councillors by suggesting some below.

The Central Car Park came in for a kicking by both Vernons and Liberty Mercian, who, despite their seeming disparagement of the site’s potential, took some time to cover the ground regarding it’s unavailability. They both appear rattled enough about a PPS6 compliant site to have written on this website in the case of Liberty Mercian, and to the Advertizer in the case of King Sturge.  Three key words come up in relation to the Central Car Park - suitability, viability and availability. The Nathaniel Lichfield Retail Survey described the Central Car Parks suitability as “good”, as opposed to “reasonable” or “poor”. The viability of the site is up to a developer to resolve, it’s what they do, just as the other developers have endeavoured to do with their own respective sites and schemes. The availability of the site - it is only unavailable due to the Town Council’s own pecuniary interest in the Smithfield site. The case rests, M’lud.