Tesco / ASDA !!!

[NeilCorrie]

We've had a response from the college concerning two Freedom Of Information requests.

Covenants relating to the college campus

Building of supermarket on existing college site

[JMC]

That is interesting. Being a former CAMSFC student I know the size of the building is fair and have a feeling they would do as big store as they could get away with.

[Dave]

That's really interesting, sgk.  If you look at the entire Hibbert Lane site on Google maps, it's surprisingly big - it actually looks to be a similar size to the entire Tesco Extra site at Portwood, including the huge car park.  And although the present camsfc car park is much smaller than Tesco's , there's a sizeable grassy area behind it which could easily become part of an enlarged car park.

[sgk]

That's good news on the leaflet drop, hopefully means a good turnout for the meeting this week.

Was thinking about how big the existing Hibbert Lane buildings are compared to the Tesco Extra in Stockport (the one where Tesco ignored planning agreements and built it 20% larger than agreed), so that we could gauge roughly how big the store might be in Marple, if it were to get approved etc.

Answer : fairly similar.  The Hibbert Lane site might actually be bigger, in terms of existing building size.  Note that the Stockport site has a rather large car park, far bigger than the Hibbert Lane site could accomodate.

The Stockport site benefits from being near to a motorway, so no issues with traffic congestion.  Hibbert Lane, on the other hand, doesn't have such road infrastructure nearby.









(Both images found using maps.google.com and using 100ft scale)

[Miss Marple]

Marple on Action began a leaflet drop yesterday in Marple to alert the community to the  possible sale of the college to a supermarket.  The leaflet gave information as to how to contact this site and details of the Area Committee Meeting on Wed

[Miss Marple]

I have emailed the councillors to put the sale of the college under any other business so that the subject will be dealt with on the night in line with council rules

[Catwoman]

Apologies, I thought I had copied and pasted the press release

[Dave]

That's very interesting catwoman, and relevant in two respects:

1.  Prestatyn is another place where many people drive about five miles away to do their major food shopping - in their case, to Rhyl, as opposed to Bredbury or Hazel Grove in our case.  (Rhyl has three major supermarkets: Asda, Morrison's and Sainsbury's)
2.  That development, like the possible one here, is close to the town centre, not 'out-of-town'.   

The question is, will that be good for other shops in Prestatyn, or not.  The local MP seems to think it will - here's the next bit of the press release, which for some reason you left out ;-)

Vale of Clwyd MP Chris Ruane welcomed the news that planning permission had been granted.  The development would be “good” for the town’s business association and the extra footfall generated should “help others prosper“, he said.

[Catwoman]

Hi

The town where Tesco had been trying to get planning for a number of years is Prestatyn. Below is the 'positive spin' put on the planning permission approval in a press release from January 2011. It demonstrates how long the big supermarket developers will bide their time (15 years) and how much the proposed development increased in that time, and affect it had on public opinion when left vacant for that length of time. The land  was turned into a temporary free car park (not a very nice one - more of an eyesore).

Denbighshire County Council’s planning committee gave the green light yesterday to a proposal to build a Tesco store and a number of retail units which could house big High Street names such as Boots, Next and Debenhams, near Prestatyn town centre.
The five hectare development, which will also include a petrol filling station and car parking for nearly 800 cars, will be sited on former industrial and commercial land between High Street and Nant Hall Road.
A bid to redevelop the site has been on the table in some shape or form for more than 15 years.
The latest version is a combination of two developments originally approved on two adjoining sites, one by Tesco and the other for Somerfield, who inherited the Kwik Save complex.
The Tesco plan was first approved in 2000 but there then followed a lengthy legal wrangle, with Stadium Prestatyn Ltd receiving permission in 2008.
The Yorkshire-based firm built Parc Llandudno, and the massive Meadowhall complex in Sheffield.
Approval, supported almost unanimously by councillors, was subject to a number of conditions, which include an assurance that work would begin within two years and work is carried out to preserve listed railway buildings.
Prestatyn East councillor James Davies acknowledged concerns raised by town residents about the impact a scheme of this scale would have on the existing road network and on people living in the Parc Bodnant estate but, gave the plan his support.
Another Prestatyn member Julian Thompson-Hill said the saga had gone on for too long.
“The blight we have had on Prestatyn in the last 15 years has been absolutely dreadful and we do need to get this resolved,” he added.

[Miss Marple]

Might be worth asking Cllr Bispham, Miss M - in his letter to you of 13 June he wrote 'In addition there is a covenant on part of the site around the gym facilities', so it sounds as though he may know something about it, or at least know where to find out?

Since the knowledge of the bids for the college nearly all my emails to councillors are not answered

UPDATED.

I have just received an email from Sue Ingham Cllr that she thinks that the meeting was on 27th June but she was not in attendance.  Ms Ingham states that the councillors had the meeting to clarify the colleges position with regards to the sale of the land.
Cllr Bispham has also replied this morning

[Miss Marple]

There has been a lot of interest from local people who I have directed to this site   If anyone new to this forum is following  this thread feels that they have the skills, knowledge or can offer legal assistance please register on the forum and pass on your details to either myself or Admin. You can do this by sending a personal message if you do not want to share information on an open forum.  PLEASE IF YOU CAN OFFER ANY SUPPORT DO SO BECAUSE TIME IS TICKING BY   

[Dave]

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, this is a complex issue, and we need to research it thoroughly, and learn from what has happened elsewhere when a new supermarket has been built close to local shops.  And it's important to differentiate between what happens when a supermarket is built close to a town centre, as may happen here, and what happens when they are built at 'out-of-town' shopping centres - the issues and the impact seem to be very different. 

Here's a short but quite relevant thread from another forum, started by someone in Bolsover, and it looks to be a fairly similar situation to our own.  http://www.civicvoice.org.uk/forums/viewthread/46/

And this link is to a research report conducted by Southampton University. It costs £50 to read the full report, but you can read the executive summary for free.  But beware - it seems to have been commissioned by Tesco! http://www.riben.org.uk/report/Executive_summary.pdf

[Miss Marple]

Might be worth asking Cllr Bispham, Miss M - in his letter to you of 13 June he wrote 'In addition there is a covenant on part of the site around the gym facilities', so it sounds as though he may know something about it, or at least know where to find out?

Since the knowledge of the bids for the college nearly all my emails to councillors are not answered

[Miss Marple]

Hi Dave I did ask Mr Hubert about this and he said that all the covenant involves is that the college has to provide some form of sports facility and youth activity , like a youth centre which he pointed out they already had but to his knowledge the youth club was no longer in use ( maybe it should start being used)   My gut feeling is that we are way behind the supermarkets in all this and the promise of the new swimming
 pool and gym facility which has been promised by a supermarket  for the Buxton Road College may address the covenant, it shouldn't work like that I know but money is a powerful tool.

[Dave]

Might be worth asking Cllr Bispham, Miss M - in his letter to you of 13 June he wrote 'In addition there is a covenant on part of the site around the gym facilities', so it sounds as though he may know something about it, or at least know where to find out?