After all, what was condemned a few months ago cannot rationally be condoned now, however prettied-up it may be. So feel free to add your own comments according to your views.
Please edit the following text as you see fit:-
Your Address
Your Town
Your Postcode
Mendip District Council
Cannards Grave Road
Shepton Mallet
Somerset
BA4 5BT
18th January 2011
Re: Planning Application 2010/2821
To Whom It May Concern:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I/we wish to register my/our objection to Tesco's planning application for a retail outlet in Glastonbury on the former Avalon Plastics site for the following reasons:-
1. The concerns raised previously with regard to the impact on Glastonbury of access to the proposed Tesco development from Beckery New Road have not been properly addressed and therefore contradict government and local planning requirements for a development of this nature.
The previous government unequivocally told Tesco that if they wished to gain permission to develop the site they had to reduce the building area (which they did), and to address the issue of access. To do this they would need to reconsider the Beckery New Road option and conform to the requirement to make the store access as congestion free, un-polluting, and convenient to Glastonbury locals as possible, and to encourage out of town users to go on to visit Glastonbury town centre and other stores (which they haven't ). The only way this could be effectively achieved is through adopting the Wirral Park Road access.
2. This proposed access would effectively leave the largest retail development in Glastonbury with it's main approach orientating out of town Tesco customers away from Glastonbury town centre and towards that of Street, with obviously detrimental consequences for Glastonbury's other retail traders, cafeterias, public houses and restaurants, (in clear contradiction of the planning requirements for such a development, which could only be permissible if it were to have a positive economic effect on the town in which it were to be situated, and therefore on it's existing local commercial outlets).
Could this curious orientation possibly have anything to do with the fact that Street has a Tesco metro outlet, which will remain open despite the construction of the larger store barely a mile away in Glastonbury. It seems to rather smack of 'what Tesco wins on the roundabout it also wins on the swings', and demonstrates a singularly cavalier attitude towards the townspeople and traders of Glastonbury!
3. Proposed secondary access to the Tesco site via Dye House Lane is irrational and unsustainable in terms of traffic flow. Quite apart from the potential for congestion, there is also the issue of the unnecessary addition to the carbon footprint that such a convoluted route would engender; an argument equally applicable to the proposed primary access route.
Apart from Tesco, nobody benefits from a Beckery New Road access. Why should Tesco, alone amongst the group of retail outlets situated on Wirral Park Road, not be accessible from Wirral Park Road? Is it because access via Beckery New Road allows Tesco to be a 'one stop shop', thus ensuring that customer spend is less likely to be diluted at the neighbouring outlets - let alone Glastonbury's historic town centre?!
4. Local councillors seeking re-election would do well to consider the above. Why should Glastonbury people consider voting for them again if they approve an unwanted development that is both practically difficult to access from Glastonbury and is a detriment to the town's existing commercial heart? It is hard to envisage how the jobs that it is suggested such a development might create would off-set those established sources of employment likely to be lost as a consequence of it's arrival.
Also, Tesco is a multi-national, and therefore both the produce it sells and the profits it makes are of little true benefit to the local community!
5. Finally, the original threat by Avalon Plastics, as Glastonbury's largest employer, to relocate if access via Beckery New Road were not approved is no longer of any relevance. Keith Butler and his colleagues have long since received their multi-million pound pay-off and have been settled in their new factory for some six months and more. Their threats are no longer a part of the equation.
Yours faithfully,...................
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