Bag's Rants

They work for you. Yeah! Right.

Just been looking through the local rag. Don't do it all the time because it's so predictable. Tends to be good news mainly about the scouts, football teams, bowls league etc.

I come across an article in the paper where it referred to an application by Morrison’s to open a new Superstore on what was an old school ground sold off by the council to Morrison’s a few years ago. The Council has, controversially, refused Morrison’s permission to build a new store on the land.

For a bit of history of my local area. We have had a Safeway store for quite a few years. On Cheshire Oaks we have a Sainsbury’s and in the town centre we have an ASDA store. Morrison’s bought the plot of land with the intention of moving into the area. Planning was refused. Then Morrison’s assimilated Safeway and the plans were shelved whilst the area was evaluated.

In the meantime our council, trying to make a deficit in the cream buns funds imposed parking charges on all its public car parks. Excluding council workers of course. In one fell swoop attendance was down dramatically. Where a year ago there were no 'For Let' signs I spotted about a dozen driving through today. Storeowners say that sales have been down ever since parking was introduced and more stores are appearing in the outlying areas where there is no parking charges.

Back to present day. The old Safeway store is quite small and so Morrison’s put in another application and again it was turned down despite a significant number of supporters at the planning meeting and a petition signed by a large number of locals. The council is pushing for Morrison’s to build in the town centre and is refusing anywhere else. Realistically it is because they know if Morrison’s build on the land they will get lots of people going there for free parking and the town centre will become a ghost town.

Now the part that caught my eye and really wound me up was that a council finance representative has said that £65K of our money has been put aside by the council for consultants to fight Morrison’s application. The plan being to get consultants to pick holes in all Morrison’s applications until they give up or decide to build in the town centre. Now how about that for an abuse of power. Spending my money on fighting something that will benefit me.

There have been a few comments going around about they must be taking backhanders and the like but I've thought about it a bit and can only come to the conclusion that they know that they have screwed this up royally. Forcing the population to come into their slot machine parking and high business rate area can only be done if there is no choice for your weekly shop. A choice within a few hundred yards screws it up for them. They control planning permission so they are using that.

Now if I was Morrison’s rather than going into to fight with a public funded behemoth I would wonder that with this disclosure is it not possible for them to take this further. Perhaps legally since it is plain there is no real reason to refuse permission they are just looking for one.

Oh! I think our local MP supports this. That is bad news for them as so far everything local he has supported has been put down. Local post office, another blow to the town centre, has closed. Local primary school. Funny how the other stuff seems to go so well. He supported Iraq, ID cards, Fox Hunting Ban, etc. He may be useless but he has an eye for a good photo op.

posted by Bag @ 9:01 pm