the No Mill Road Tesco Campaign

5 March 2008; for immediate release

The No Mill Road Tesco campaign have condemned the Council planning officers’ recommendation of approval for Tesco’s Mill Road plans as unsound, based on flawed interpretation of planning guidance and key factual mistakes.

The Campaign’s report, sent to East Area Committee councillors, who will be voting on the decision on Thursday, concludes that it would be unreasonable “to approve proposals with the capacity to so seriously damage residential amenity, highway safety, and the local centre, when approval is based on such incomplete and seriously flawed advice”.

No Mill Road Tesco campaign coordinator Sonia Cooter said: “The more we looked at the report, the more amazed we were that the planners could recommend approval on such shaky grounds, especially after the problems with the last report.” On 16th January 2008, the City Council withdrew the planning officers’ previous report on Tesco’s applications, following a formal complaint by the No Mill Road Tesco campaign.

“They are saying that councillors should approve the plans for the store,” Sonia Cooter continued. “But the proposals contravene the Council’s own planning guidance, as well as national guidance, on matters as basic as parking and deliveries, and they haven’t answered obvious questions such as how they would deal with the store’s waste, how much the noise pollution would affect local residents, and other important matters.

“The delivery issue is typical of the problems with the report. The planners say it would be acceptable for Tesco to unload their 10 metre lorries on Mill Road, even though the Council’s own guidance says very clearly that this won’t be allowed, and despite the fact that the Highway Authority have said that making deliveries to the front of the store would be dangerous for pedestrians. They say it has to be allowed because that’s what the last occupiers of the site did, which seems like a strange argument to us and isn’t actually true, in any case – they made deliveries to the car park at the back.

“We all know how narrow and congested Mill Road is already. In effect, the planners are saying that they are happy for Tesco to block this section of the street for up to forty minutes at a time, several times a day, and that there won’t be congestion or safety problems. We don’t understand how they can think this is acceptable. There is nowhere for Tesco to make deliveries safely and legally to the site, but the planners say councillors should approve the plans anyway. Local taxpayers don’t pay – and local voters don’t vote – for the council to make the roads more dangerous and congested than they already are.

“In every case where the planners acknowledge there is a problem they say ‘on its own, this isn’t enough of a reason to refuse the application’. But when you add together each individual problem you get a very big, cumulative problem with the application, and the planners simply haven’t taken any account of this cumulative impact.

“The job of councillors is to represent their constituents and to balance this with the demands of planning regulations. This is often a very difficult task. In this case, though, both the constituents and planning regulations are clear that the Tesco’s plans for this site should be rejected.

“All over the country, councillors are refusing permission for Tesco Express stores – even when planning officers start by recommending approval – because they threaten road safety, cause problems for local residents and threaten the vitality and viability of local centres. We hope that our councillors will do the same.”

The decision on the applications will be made by the East Area Committee at 7.30 pm on Thursday 6 March, in St Phillips Church, Mill Road.

ENDS

For more information contact:
Richard Rippin – 07886 757987