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       Stour Community First

   Fighting to preserve our community

                           Rejected!!!

Tendring District Council vote resoundingly to reject Tesco’s application to build a super store in our town. For details see letter from our Chairman, Michael Coultharde-Steer. (12th. May 2010)

Thanks to all the supporters of Stour Community First. The turnout at the Tendring District Council offices before the meeting was really impressive and may well have influenced the outcome

Bernard Jenkin, M.P. calls for a public enquiry. This is the text of a letter dated 11th. May 2010.

Dear Mr Coultharde-Steer

As I said to you in my previous email, I have become increasingly persuaded of the need for this application to go to a public inquiry and committed to write to the Secretary of State to press him to “call in” the application. I have now written to the Director of the Government Office for the East of England calling for a full public inquiry and, as soon as a new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is in place, I will write to him or her along the same lines. I have enclosed a copy of my letter to the Director.

Yours sincerely

Bernard Jenkin MP

Manningtree Council are firmly against the proposed Tesco superstore, and have produced an excellent document giving their reasons. You can see a PDF of their letter by clicking on this arrow (it may take a bit of time to come up!

How supermarkets can cut 'thousands of prices' but your bills may go up Stores accused of being 'cynical and aggressive'
Grocers say increases followed earlier offers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/12/supermarkets-prices-bills

• Some of you will share our concern that Tendring Council has been having “secret” talks with Tesco. We are taking this very seriously and are following it up with a request for details under the Freedom of Information Act. But no answers so far!

Here is some good news.
Two of our complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority have been up-held.
“Tesco found guilty of of using bogus statistics to convince town (Manningtree) it needed a supermarket” says Mail Online. Read more
See also in The Standard “Manningtree: Tesco slapped on wrist over "misleading" claims
More details are given on the ASA web site.
Only 38 out of 440 people (8.6%) in their telephone survey wanted a new supermarket and only 20 of these wanted a Tesco. Tesco used these figures to imply that there is a strong need for their new supermarket in our town.
See also encouraging email from George Monbiot saying that many groups have been successful in opposing Tesco.

21st. July 2009. Stour Community First and Transition Valley join to help re-vitalise our community. Click arrow for details 


An aerial view of the proposed site Tesco is given below
The documents relating to the Manningtree Tesco application, including objection letters, are on on the Council web site. For more details click here

A Tesco store kills a small town. See letter from Nigel Dowdney about Stalham in Norfolk. Click here

Manningtree is England’s smallest town situated on the Essex-Suffolk border on the banks of the river Stour. The villages of Lawford and Mistley have have merged with it to make a small vibrant community.

Our narrow high street with several small shops including a health food store, a couple of bakers, a delicatessen, a farm shop, a chemist, a hardware shop, several clothes shops and more. It also has services such as doctors and dentists, opticians and a post-office situated in a moderate sized Coop store. There are good bus services to Colchester and Harwich and other parts of Essex, with fast trains to London.

Please help us to preserve our town!

l

An aerial view of the proposed Tesco site

Original by Michael Collins
If councillors ignore their own Adopted Local Plan and approve this proposal,
visitors may well ask “Where will we find the High Street? - the answer...
“It used to be between the Tesco Superstore and Tesco Express”.
This small historic town deserves better.

The proposed site is equivalent in size to 10% of the parish of Manningtree.

Retain employment land and SAY NO to a retail; development that the local plan says is not needed!