To defeat Tesco the Council must stiffen its backbone
17th April 2007
Anne Main MP welcomed Parliamentary colleague Ed Davey MP, for Kingston on Thames, to a City Centre meeting on Friday 13th April, to debate the proposed Tesco development in her constituency.
Anne Main MP welcomed Parliamentary colleague Ed Davey MP, for Kingston on Thames, to a City Centre meeting on Friday 13th April, to debate the proposed Tesco development in her constituency.
Mr Davey, who is also facing development proposals from the company in Tolworth, told the audience that at the present time in the face of planning concerns and public opposition Tesco had withdrawn its plans for an 80,000sq ft store and 835 flats on the 13 acre site and was currently renegotiating terms with the local community.
Given the prospect of plans being resubmitted he was pleased to share ideas with and learn from the campaign team in St Albans.
Anne, who addressed the meeting, said:
"With any planning application you need firm planning reasons to refuse a proposal. I have studied the Tolworth situation and fortunately for that community, the Royal Borough of Kingston had made it crystal clear in its local development plan and indeed the planning brief for the site that "it was deemed that a retail store would in no way be acceptable for this site"-indeed the site was specifically earmarked for community use and family housing, with tight guidelines that the units should be predominately family sized homes not flats.
They also had the useful precedent of a large Homebase application also being refused some years back. This strong community vision enshrined in the local plan gave the council and the community excellent reasons for refusal which is why Tesco have temporarily backed off.
We too need some real community vision for St Albans. Our District Council needs to "stiffen its backbone" particularly with regard to the findings of the 2006 Retail Needs survey, and its current local District Plan and keep this site earmarked for housing not a superstore.
Currently Tesco is engaged in micro modelling studies of traffic flows in the London road, but I believe we should also have independent Council based pollution studies and as such I am writing to the Highways agency and environmental health to ask if we can have a pollution motoring station placed at the traffic hotspots near the site to assess current air quality and extrapolate those findings based on the workings of a 50,000sq ft supermarket. As Mr Davey observed, it will be a long fight for both constituencies, but, aided by a new robust District Plan, I want us to win the war on inappropriate development in St Albans not just the skirmishes.""