Tesco at Little Lever -1

Not blogged for ages but I feel that 2001 will be a very controversial year for Little Lever in relation to the following.

Early in December it came to light by means of a circular from Eric Hyde that approaches had been made to houses on Ainsworth Rd by Mason Owen of Liverpool with a view to purchasing those houses.

To cut a long story short, it was believed that they were acting on behalf of Tesco with a view to creating an access to the old Pennine Pets site to facilitate the building of a supermarket there.

This map shows the site with the old Pennine Pets factory still there




The buildings burned down and have subsequently been demolished.




The supermarket plan was more or less confirmed in the words of Councillor Mary Woodward on the Little Lever Info forum

“Its now pretty much out that Tesco are looking into putting a multi million pound investment store in little lever, it will be proposed to replace the already store with a much larger one. They have suggested that they will pay for the much needed Highway works on the corner of Church/Lever and Ainsworth Rd. Talks are still underway and we will hopefully know more real soon.”


Way back in 2006, Wainhomes had submitted a planning application to Bolton Council for the building of 37 Houses and 44 Apartments on this site. (74765/06)

This application was approved in October 2007 with the condition that the development started within three years.

Now, the guy who owns the site is called Mark Seddon and in amongst the Planning Documents was a draft agreement for him to sell the site to Wainhomes. This apparently fell through when the market conditions changed Wainhomes’ view of the value of the site to them.

In October this year the time period for the Planning Consent expired and Wainhomes re-applied for an extension of this for a further two years. (85003/10).The decision target date for this was 23rd December but no decision has yet been posted on the Bolton Council Website.

It is unlikely that this can be refused and if it were it would surely be allowed on appeal.

So we have the bizarre situation where there are two plans for the same site circulating around Bolton Town Hall – one for residential which has already been approved and one for a supermarket which is the subject of ‘Confidential Talks’

One interested resident has already submitted a FOI request about these talks and has received the following reply

In response to your request for information you requested:

“Any correspondence with the Planning Department and any supermarket chain or developer representing supermarkets in relation to the land that is covered under planning permission applications 85003/10 and 80410/08, which relates to Lever Street, Little Lever. If you could also provide me with any information and correspondence between the planning department and the local ward councillors both past and present, with regards to the above site.”

Your request has been considered under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 which is the legislation which applies in requests for information which relate to the environment.

In this case, we consider that the exemption under regulations

• 12(5)(e) The confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest

and

• 12(5)(f) The interests of the supplier of the information

applies to this information as we believe releasing the information would unfairly prejudice the interests of the parties involved and public interest in withholding outweighs public interest in disclosing.

At this moment there is interest in developing the site for retail. However, the information which has been provided to date is commercially sensitive. It is our opinion that any third party which wishes to consult with Bolton Council informally on issues relating to development and planning, should have an expectation of confidentiality in those discussions."

Interestingly, Bolton Council have not considered the request under the Freedom of Information Act but have quoted the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

A quick persusal of the said Regulations make it clear on any interpretation of the English Language that they are sod all to do with building supermarkets – as follows

This is the definition of information relating to the environment as contained in the regulations

“Environmental Information” has the same meaning as in Article 2(1) of the Directive, namely any information in written, visual, aural, electronic or any other material form on—

(a)
the state of the elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites including wetlands, coastal and marine areas, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements;

(b)
factors, such as substances, energy, noise, radiation or waste, including radioactive waste, emissions, discharges and other releases into the environment, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment referred to in (a);

(c)
measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in (a) and (b) as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements;

(d)
reports on the implementation of environmental legislation;

(e)
cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities referred to in (c); and

(f)
the state of human health and safety, including the contamination of the food chain, where relevant, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures inasmuch as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment referred to in (a) or, through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in (b) and (c);

This sounds like another sleight of hand by the beloved Mr Eastwood in his time-honoured manner of re-interpreting the lawof the land.

I have suggested to the the submitter of the FOI request that he insists that the request is treated under the FOI Act and any exemptions from the release of the information be under articles in that Act.

We’ll see what happens.