Supermarket application was railroaded through system
Wednesday 20th June 2012
Upon reflection, it is clear that from the very start the planning department was determined that the Tesco application would be approved.
From the gerrymandering of the town centre boundary through the spending of ratepayers money so transport for Greater Manchester could ensure the traffic modelling would produce the desired result — to the downright distortion of the language of planning guidelines — these people were going to get their way.
The applicants, in the meantime, had the benefit of using the same public relations firm which Bolton Council had hired to sweet-talk council house tenants into the housing stock transfer.
None of this could be guaranteed to work without the co-operation of a supine and servile planning committee, which appeared to turn a blind eye to the obvious deficiencies in the application — some of which were put before them by myself in a 50-page dossier — and meekly did their master’s bidding and handed it back to the director.
This is the director who now presides over the stalled grandiose Central Street, Church Wharf, Merchants Quarter and Westbrook Gateway projects, all of which, on the admission of the leader and the chief executive, are going nowhere anytime soon. It is understandable that he is desperate to get anything developed or regenerated.
He can, of course, point to Bolton One (or Waterplace Two as I prefer to call it) and frequently does, but this is a £31m PFI project which the ratepayers will be paying through the nose for years from now.
The lack of pivate investment in the town is sad, but understandable in the present climate, but it doesn’t justify railroading another supermarket application through the system without assessing the effects on the community and existing businesses where it is to be located.
The Tesco tail has wagged the planning department dog and then the planning department tail has wagged the planning committee dog — and it’s all wrong.
Paul Richardson
Ripon Close
Little Lever
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