Oswestry21

The most dismaying piece in this weeks Tizer reported on the successful appeal by The Barracuda Group in their bid to open a Smith and Jones bar at Seconds Ahead, the old cinema building.

This had been opposed by the police, the Town Council, and nearby residents and businesses. It was passed by by Mrs A L Fairclough  MA, BSc(Hons), The Planning Inspectorate, 4/11 Eagle Wing, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol BS1 6PN. Contact 0117 372 6372 email:enquiries@pins.gsi.gov.uk An Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Living in Bristol, she would, of course be intimately familiar enough with Oswestry and it’s problems of low wages, drink related anti social behaviour and pub closures to make a such a considered judgement.

Is this really the best we can do with one of the largest retail spaces in the town?

Is this really the best we can do for young people in a low waged town with over 1000 unemployed and less than a 100 jobs advertised in the Job Centre?

Is this really the best we can do for small pubs that are already closing or struggling because of the economy, the smoking ban and cheap supermarket alcohol?

Is this the best we can do for a town whose night time centre is already overtaken by the anti social behaviour seen reported in the Tizer every week, and the remains of which litter the pavements in the morning?

Granting a licence to only 11.30 pm means nothing when permission to extend this until 2 am will doubtless be applied for within six months. Objection by local police, Council and residents and businesses being over-ruled by officials 100 miles away is another example of the need for stronger, clearer local voice, and how interventions like the Local Joint Committee are mere box ticking excercises if they are to pride themselves on dog crap and wheelie bin discussions and avoid the bigger issues.

In the Tizer this week………. “Town traders feel pinch of Parkright powers”.

If Parkright alone are causing Yossi Glickman of the Chamber of Commerce concern around town centre decline, the incremental effects of petrol prices, an economic slow down or recession and an increase in on line shopping will make life very much harder, and the opening of a retail park & new supermarket (with 2 hour free or re-fundable parking) should just about guarantee ghost town status for Oswestry town centre.

Also in the Tizer -”Council coffers ‘in the black!’” Oswestry Town Council accounts show a figure approaching £1M. (£951,658). What plans to encourage shoppers and visitors into this “historic border market town”, or the market itself? Any ideas for alleviating the town centre cost of a traffic system that sweeps shoppers into Sainsbury’s and a proposed supermarket? Any studies being undertaken to look into the problems of running a rural town in a post peak oil world? And what of the Town Council’s top earner, the Central Car Park once an out of town retail park is up and running?

Time for some real investment in the future. Time for some vision and joined up thinking. Vain hope?

Fascinating piece in the Advertizer, 10th June, illustrating some oddly schizophrenic views from the Town Council.

A pension compamy, The Pension Trust, operating on the industrial estate, had made an application to Borough planners requesting them to “lift the condition that 30% of sales must be to the trade”. Councillors said that the current restrictions on how much trade should be allowed to the public were being widely breached. 

Councillor Martin Bennett said that out of town retailing to the general public had been allowed to grow  and had damaged town centre trading. “I would not think there are many premises down there which are not trading to the public”. Councillor Heather Bickerton said “There is more retailing down there than there is in the town centre. Perhaps that is why the town centre is so quiet”.  

These two Town Councillors are members of the council that have been negotiating with Oswestry Cattle Auctions and Liberty Mercian to provide a 40,000 sq ft sales area supermarket, a 5 screen cinema, 30,000 sq ft of non food retail floor space, 3 restaurants, a filling station and office space at the Smithfield. Of the three developments being proposed currently (Smithfield, Burbages, J T Hughes) the Smithfield would occupy the most out of town location.

This is an open and genuine invitation to both Councillor Martin Bennett and to Councillor Heather Bickerton to respond by commenting upon why an out of town supermarket and retail park will somehow not impact upon the town centre while the business of an out of town pension company does.

We will await your response with interest.    

FAIR COMPETITION? 

For Simon Hoare, representing the Liberty Mercian/Smithfield development it’s a matter of WHERE and not of WHETHER a development will be built. For OS21 it is a matter of SCALE as well as LOCATION, and for town centre retailers, it’s a matter of how a development will affect their TAKINGS and LIVELIHOODS.

If you don’t have an opinion now, you will certainly have one once one of the over scaled and inappropriately located developments has been built and in is in operation. Yes, you have an economic down turn, increasing oil prices, environmental issues and Parkright to contend with - but do you really want to see the chief economic retail zone of the town effectively relocated to edge or out of town as well - with FREE PARKING?