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What YOU can do
Planning Department
Tendring District Council
Thorpe Road
Weeley CO16 9AJ
Dear Mr. Fletcher,
Planning Application 10/01357/FUL – Tesco Stores, Station Road,
Manningtree - Objection
I wish to OBJECT to the above application. This application has done
nothing to adequately address the reasons for refusal of the 2008
application (08/00603/FUL) by Tesco. This was refused, amongst other
things, because of its adverse impact on local retailers and the
unacceptable increase in volume of traffic.
I now summarise what the main objections are:
1) Impact on local retailers
This proposal will double, in one go, the retail floorspace in
Manningtree and Lawford. This is clearly out of scale with the existing
town. Tendring’s emerging Core Strategy plans show no related growth in
housing planned for the area.
The High Street’s shops include a bakery, greengrocers, pharmacy,
florist, stationers, whole-food store, newsagent and there is a
twice-weekly market.
Tesco’s own figures show that there will be no increase in turnover for
local retailers once trade has been diverted to their store and the
existing turnover of the Tesco Express is diverted on its closure. Yet
the applicant considers that there will be increased footfall in the
High Street.
Your own committee report informing the decision on the previous
application stated that “there would be some closures” of shops on the
High Street” and I believe that this is still likely to bethe case.
There are significant conflicts between the retail capacity assessment
in the previous application and that in the present one.
In the last application there was no guarantee that the Tesco Express
would remain open - it was simply stated as an ‘offer’ by Tesco. With
the closure of the High Street’s largest retail unit how will this help
its vitality and viability?
This a store that will allow Tesco to ‘pipeline in and pipeline out’, living off
the Manningtree community not with it.
2) Traffic
There are fundamental flaws in the application’s Traffic Impact
Assessment and in the case of the most glaring omission - vehicles
coming though the Town from the east, no assessment. The TIA seriously
under-estimates the likely volume of traffic such a store would generate
and its impact on the surrounding network (both in terms of performance
and safety). There will be considerable increase in traffic and
pollution. Yet the roads that serve the town-centre are historic and
narrow and not capable of accommodating significant levels of additional
traffic. Some streets have no pavements, ‘rat-runs’ will develop,
increasing the danger to pedestrians.At peak-times and when accidents
occur there will be increased pressure at the railway-crossing.
The cost of any mitigating road changes will, in the long term, be paid
for by the taxpayer.
3) Employment
The proposed store will provide a comparatively small number of jobs and
do little to address the area’s employment needs. Once such a store is
established the net employment gain to the local economy would be far
less than the 180 claimed because of the loss of jobs as a result of
High Street closures and the knock-on effect on their local suppliers.
Tesco’s offer of £34,000 towards B-class employment training is
insufficient to be able to provide anything meaningful. Their
contribution should be much higher.
The recent occupation of the new employment unit on Station Road, next
to George’s car wash, demonstrates that there is a market for B-class
employment in the immediate area. Such employment provides a greater
range of higher skilled jobs and more opportunity for local people to be
trained in a skilled profession.
4) Design
To quote Manningtree Town Council: ‘The new design of the building is
ugly and incoherent and contravenes the recommendations of the Essex
Design Guide (ECC 1997)’. I agree fully with this view.
I object to this out-of-scale proposal on the boundary of the country’s
smallest town and I urge you to reject it. Once such a store is built,
there will be no opportunity to properly mitigate against the worst of
the impacts that it will create, and in particular the loss of vitality
of our High Street.
I reserve the right to submit further information.
Yours sincerely
Dear SCF member, 18th. November 2010
The Tendring Core Strategy Preferred Option is currently out for consultation. This is a vital document in the fight
against a new Tesco supermarket in Manningtree. Why? Because the preferred option of the District Council is to
extend the western boundary of the defined town centre of Manningtree to include the Tesco-owned site. This will
mean that it will be considerably easier for them to secure the planning permission they need.
Anyone can respond to the consultation and it is vital that as many of us as possible do so and make clear that
such an extension of the town is unacceptable. So here is how you do it and the points you need to be making.
THE KEY POINTS
1. The spatial vision for the district says that Manningtree and Lawford will see modest levels of new housing “to
support local shops and services and to provide for local needs.” This, coupled with the lack of identified retail need,
means that there is no justification for doubling the size of the town centre.
2. The plan lacks flexibility (a key word to use) because it is entirely predicated on the delivery of a Tesco store
(Tesco would have no plans to deliver anything else on a site they own).
3. It is questionable as to whether the plan is deliverable (again, another key word to use). Tesco’s first application
was refused because of the traffic impact and because of the impact on the vitality and viability of the High Street. An extension of the town centre boundary is not going to address those issues so will fail to address Policy PR4 as the
project purports to do. Future applications should therefore be refused and therefore a site adjacent to the town
centre will be left derelict (because Tesco appear to have little interest in at least
making it presentable).
4. The document acknowledges that Manningtree contains “historic street patterns that are not well suited to
motorised travel.” An expanded town centre, incorporating a Tesco, is fundamentally at odds with this and the
intention to preserve the town’s character (Policy PL2).
5 The latest Tesco plans demonstrate that they are simply trying to sell the same goods as those on the High
Street, thereby putting the local traders out of business. Notwithstanding the traditional grocery items that many
of the shops sell, it would have a pharmacy and delicatessen, and would sell clothes and white goods. It will
therefore not be expanding the range of shops and services in the town centre, so would not be addressing Policy
ML2.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR REPRESENTATIONS
There are two ways to do this:
1. Write a letter and address it to The Development Plan Manager,
Planning Services, Tendring District Council, Council Offices, Thorpe
Road, Weeley, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, CO16 9AJ. Clearly mark it ‘Core
Strategy Proposed Submission Document – Response).
2. Make your representations on-line at
http://tendring.addresscafe.com/App/DiscussIt/CoreStrategy.aspx?docId=1974
If this link is broken try this shorter version:
http://tinyurl.com/tdcstrategy
You can download the document from the Tendring DC website (same weblink
asabove) or view it at the following locations:
Manningtree library (and all other libraries throughout the district)
Weeley Council Offices (Thorpe Road, Weeley, Essex CO16 9AJ);
Clacton Town Hall (Station Road, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, CO15 1SE);
Cash office at Waddesdon Road (Dovercourt, Harwich, Essex CO12 3BA);
Cash Office at The Triangle Shopping Centre (Frinton-on-Sea Essex CO13 0AU)
THE CLOSING DATE FOR REPRESENTATIONS IS 6TH DECEMBER SO DO NOT DELAY.
The more responses making these points (and any others you think are relevant), the better.
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Members of Stour Community First litter picking on the sea wall
An example of some of the points you could make in a letter to Mr. Fletcher in reply to the lettter of 5th. March 2010 from Martin Forth..
Mr Peter Fletcher
Planning Department Tendring District
Council Council Offices Thorpe Road
Weeley CO16 9AJ
Dear Mr Fletcher
Re: planning application 08/00603/FUL
I wish to reinforce, in the strongest possible terms, my objection to this application. My objections, lodged in response to the original application, still stand. Indeed, they still form the basis of why I consider this application should be refused permission. This application:
- is contrary to policy in the adopted Local Plan, particularly Policy ER3 (Protection of Employment Land);
- would create additional retail floorspace that has been assessed as not being necessary;
- would have a negligible net effect on employment in Manningtree;
- would have an unacceptable impact on traffic flows in the area; and
- would have an unacceptably detrimental effect on the existing retail businesses in the High Street, as those shopping at the new supermarket would not then go to the High Street to undertake further shopping.
This latter point is relevant to the revision to the application on which you are consulting. Just because the store has been repositioned on the site does not mean that people shopping at the Tesco store will choose to then go to the High Street. Clearly a supermarket of the size proposed will aim to sell all convenience goods, thereby rendering a visit to all bar the most niche stores in the High Street unnecessary. This would threaten, amongst others, the fruiterers, the bakers, the florists, the delicatessens and the twice-weekly market. One of the fundamental principles of national planning policy is to protect the vitality and viability of town centres. It simply cannot be argued that a supermarket of the size proposed will have anything other than a significantly detrimental effect on the High Street. In the short term it will affect the businesses named above and, in the long term, the remainder of the businesses as the lack of investment and footfall through the town will compromise the already fragile economics of small retail businesses, under constant attack from major supermarkets. The new store may face the town, but multinational retailers such as Tesco have little interest in supporting the continuing prosperity of local businesses selling the same goods as them; after all, such prosperity represents spending not going through their tills.
These changes represent nothing more than superficial design alterations and do not alter the fundamental concerns with the application as a whole. I therefore urge you to recommend refusal of this application.
Yours sincerely
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O n e w o r d of w a rn in g is to tr y a n d st ic k to th e g e n e r al p ri n ci pl e s. T hi s is n ot th e fo ru m fo r a le n gt h y r a nt a b o ut th e T e s c o pl a n s a n d will be ignored by the planners. So save that for the planning application which Tesco say will be submitted by the end of the year (Christmas Eve is a popular date for them to do it!).
Regards
Mike Coultharde-Steer
Chairman
March 15th 2010
Click here for an example of some of the points you could make in a letter to Mr. Fletcher in reply to the lettter of 5th. March 2010 from Martin Forth..
A small band of SCF volunteers regularly brave the elements and pick litter in Manningtree. Our thanks to them for helping to make Manningtree a better place. Pictures
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