The Co-op’s video from its presentation day featuring lots of local characters!

If you are writing to object to Tesco’s planning application, then please ensure that any letters are with the planning officer John Pearson by the 24th September.

Letters of objection have to be on material planning grounds. If you would like to object but need some help, please look at our template letters: template-letter1 and welsh-template-letter. We would urge you to personalise these letters, but be sure to quote the planning reference P/2011/0920, and to state that you object.

The deadline for responses is only 24 September 2011.

The page on Powys Council’s planning website is here and the many, many documents they have submitted are here.

We recommend that you email the planning officer, John Pearson to tell him that it is impossible for ordinary members of the public to be expected to digest and respond to an application that includes 539 pages of information, by the formal deadline, and that we hope that submissions made after this date will be taken into consideration. Use the reference number P/2011/0920.

Please come to a meeting to coordinate responses to Tesco’s planning application on Monday 5th September, 8.00 at the White Lion. All welcome.

Catch up on the back story!

Here is a link to a PDF of a presentation by a local planning expert, which describes the 2009-10 Tesco planning application in Machynlleth and the response to it, and what happened.

The arrival of Tesco’s in our town could prove disastrous for jobs and the health of our shops and our unique high street.

Tesco’s says they will create jobs. They will, but in the end others will go, and with them the businesses and shops that depend on keeping money circulating in the town instead of going to Tesco’s shareholders in London.

This is based not on guesswork but on research into what has happened elsewhere. Here is the evidence we have amassed:

• Report on Jobs and supermarkets for Abergavenny
• Supermarket Job Claims 2010 - Report by the Association of Community Shops
• The Effect of Supermarkets on Small Retailers (Federation of Small Businesses)
• The Effect of Supermarkets on Jobs in Small Towns
• Jobs in the supermarket industry nationwide (decline not growth)

There will be a public exhibition in Machynlleth from 9am on 14th September of the full detail of the planning application for the enlargement of the Co-operative store and extended car park.

It will be in the former Drill Hall, next to the Co-op, into which the Co-op intends to expand.

There will be a meeting to coordinate responses to Tesco’s planning application on Monday 5th September, 8.00 at the White Lion. All welcome.

Opposition to Tesco and other supermarkets who help to destroy the uniqueness of high streets and towns like Machynlleth is everywhere.

Here is a good recent article in the Guardian on this.

We wrote to the Co-op in January to complain about the poor level of service and ask when they were going to develop the store. This is their response, from Stuart Hookins, Head of Portfolio Strategy Acquisitions and Disposals, which came today:

We appreciate the interest that you and the residents of Machynlleth have shown in our store in the town and our efforts to improve it.

We would like to re-assure you that we have not been idle since our planning application to extend the Co-operative store was granted, and a considerable amount of work has been going on behind the scenes. Whilst we still fully intend to carry out the store extension, we have also been looking at ways of improving further the whole shopping experience at our Machynlleth store. I can report that we now have an approved strategy which is well progressed, but involves completing negotiations with third parties. Please be assured that as soon as we are in a position to do so, a full press release will be made.

During this time the store is trying it’s hardest to maintain a great level of service to customers but we hope that you will appreciate that this will be significantly improved once we are able to provide a better store for the town.

Many thanks again for contacting the Co-operative and I hope this letter has gone some way to assuring you and other Co-operative supporters in Machynlleth that we value your ongoing support and are working to provide a supermarket the whole town can be proud of.

A new piece of research has been published by the ACS (Association of Convenience Stores).

It challenges the way supermarkets tell planners that their big new stores will create new jobs.

It outlines for the first time why planners, councils, the media and the public should take their figures with a teaspoon of salt.

Its conclusions are:

• The assumption that job creation figures can be taken as an indicator positive employment impact is fundamentally flawed. It needs to be addressed through a number of approaches:

1. Systematic use of ‘full time equivalent’ (FTE) jobs - because simple head count job creation figures are misleading. The body of evidence from academics and practitioners supporting the use of FTE calculations is overwhelming. Thiswould enable planners to appreciate the reality of expected employment.
2. Using an 18 month time frame to consider employment impacts -  becuse it takes time to see the impact. This will allow the incremental effect on existing businesses to be considered.
3. Use of a standardised methodology for calculating job losses: Job losses caused by new developments are difficult to predict. However, a standardised methodology to calculate the anticipated job destruction associated with a development will help ensure that approving a planning application will not impair the vitality and viability of the local area.

• Job creation is clearly high on the agenda of many planning authorities looking to stimulate economic development.
• However, when assessing applications, planners should be extremely cautious of being seduced by the promise of job creation in hard times.
• Not only are these figures misleading but the reality could actually be a net loss in jobs down the track and the destruction of small businesses and entrepreneurs capable of generating exactly that economic development.

Download Job Creation Claims in New Supermarket Retail Developments.