Date set for crucial Oswestry supermarket meeting
Friday 25th June 2010, 11:00PM BST.
The crunch meeting to decide where Oswestry’s new multi-million pound supermarket will be built is to be held on July 29, council bosses announced today.
And they added councillors will only discuss each of the four planning application lodged – and not the “Fifth Option” proposal that has been mooted by anti-supermarket campaigners, which calls for all the bids to be ditched.
Shropshire Council spokesman Gareth Proffitt said: “The four applications to build a new supermarket in Oswestry will be considered at a meeting of Shropshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee on the afternoon of July 29 at the Marches School.”
The bids submitted are for the Central Car Park in the town centre, the Smithfield Livestock Market in Shrewsbury Road, the Richard Burbidge site in Whittington Road and the JT Hughes and Guttercrest site in Victoria Road.
Consider
The announcement means the council will not consider a suggestion by the Keep Our Town Special coalition.
The coalition of campaign group Oswes-try 21, Oswestry Civic Society and the Campaign to Protect Rural England, says all four applications for a supermarket development must be turned down to “ensure Oswestry’s future as a market town with real choice and character”. It says the fifth option of no retail application being given consent is a valid planning option.
The coalition aims to release the results of research it has done during the run-up to the crunch planning meeting. It believes it is the first time a “real on-the-ground investigation” has been done into how Oswestry’s existing supermarkets trade.
Charles Green of the Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “The retail study commissioned originally by Oswestry Borough Council which triggered the superstore applications was in reality largely ‘office-based’.”
By Iain St John
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I can not see any reason why the fifth option can not be discussed,its a valid option, which many agree with or are they once again going to over-ride the views of the residents of Oswestry.
As one coucillour said at the first hearing that the new tesco in his town, has had a negative effect on the trade of the town.So I wonder if he will be on this hearing !!!!
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They are not over-riding the views of the residents, it’s only a minority who agree with the fifth option, you’ll find that most people you speak to in Oswestry (including many of the small traders) are in favour of one of the 4 plans going ahead.
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They don’t necessarily have to choose any of of the four options but they can only discuss and decide upon the applications put before them and not “options”.
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The Fifth Option cannot be discussed as such but is implicit in the other 4, all of which can be rejected.
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