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Colne supermarket plan approved
7:00pm Friday 4th July 2008
By Peter Magill »
UP to 320 jobs are set to be created in Colne after plans for a new supermarket were backed by councillors.
Controversial proposals to build a Sainsbury’s store on the former Coach House Antiques site, bounded by Windsor Street, Windy Bank and Norfolk Street, have been approved by Pendle council’s Colne committee.
Opinion has been divided over the merits of the scheme, amid fears that it could decimate town centre trade and lead to further traffic logjams on the North Valley Road.
Tories opposed the plans but the outline bid was passed after Liberal Democrats supported the Sainsbury’s package.
Joanne Try, a development executive for the supermarket group, said: “The site will claw back customers who are doing their shopping outside Colne.”
An estimated £7 to £10million in trade could be brought back to the area if the supermarket was approved, according to figures produced by the chain.
Part of the planning permission also includes a £1million legal agreement, which can be spent on public transport, town centre improvements or even activities promoting the town as a shopping venue.
But neighbour Joseph Holmes, of Windsor Street, said that the plans “would not even have passed go” if they had been lodged on the doorsteps of planning officials or Sainsbury’s managers.
Mr Holmes said that the arrival of the supermarket would only make traffic congestion problems along Windsor Street even worse.
He added: “This is a short-term gain, being considered by the council, the people who are supposed to look out for our best interests but just do the opposite.
“I think you should look at the impact that this will have on Colne traders and Colne residents. It is said that when people finish their shopping at Sainsbury’s they will go up town to do the rest of their shopping. That will just not happen.”
Coun George Askew said that they did not trust traffic modelling figures produced by the supermarket, showing that they could manage the highways impact on the North Valley Road.
But the committee heard that Lancashire County Council’s highways department had not objected to the development.
And the borough council’s own retail studies have shown that Colne and Nelson could sustain an additional supermarket.
Coun Thomas said: “If we turned this down then we would be in great difficulty if it went to appeal.”
Councillors heard that the proposals would provide the equivalent of 200 full-time jobs for the town.
Coun Tony Greaves added: “Two hundred jobs in Colne is not to be sneezed at. All things being equal this would not be a deciding factor but this is such a finely-balanced decision.”
The supermarket must return to the council for full planning permission on issues such as design and detailed transport requirements.
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Kevin, Colne, Colne says...
9:09pm Fri 4 Jul 08
Councillors were trapped by constraints at every turn. Had they been facing execution their degree of freedom would have amounted to deciding whether their impending demise was to be by firing squad or lethal injection.
Moreover many of them gave the impression of folks at sea without a compass. Councillor Smith-Benson was one of the few who recognised the gravity of the situation for the centre of the town and saw through the absurdity of some of the arguments that were used to support the application.
Any councillor who is not alarmed by the estimate of the level of custom that will be extracted from businesses in the centre of Colne is either not thinking or comatose. Any councillor who believes that this can be ameliorated by the developer supporting a mini-bus service and other token measures is either deluded or naive, and probably both.
It is a very strange thing to live in Pendle because we have a council that is schizophrenic. They remind me of that old joke of the airline pilot who announces to the passengers: "Ladies and gentlemen I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is we're lost, the good news is we're making great time".
Councillors are often trying to encourage members of the public to attend meetings of council committees. Anyone who does is likely to be shocked by what they see and hear but have a better understanding of why the difficulties the town faces are greater than they need be.