Ready for Sainsburys?

Having traveled through both Melton Mowbray and Leicester (below) recently I have started to wonder, once people are stuck in traffic jams on the way into Oakham, if the people of Rutland will think the addition of a new mid price supermarket is worth the trouble.

The road between the level crossing in Okaham and the roundabout with the A606 is a major one for the people of Rutland and is often beset by roadworks due to the construction work associated with a large housing development with the land north west of Oakham looking more like a war zone everyday with the destruction of farmland for bricks and motor.

Personally traffic jams and the increased pollution they cause isn't something I am looking forward to and with the prospect of another mid priced supermarket to come one that I see as pointless. If it was a low cost supermarket there might be a point of putting up with the disruption for the connivance and saving that could be made in doing the weekly shop, but in this case it will bring little to the town, other than the closure of more high street shops.

The Return of Sainsbury's

The supermarket chain Sainsbury's have renewed their efforts to open a store in Oakham. This time they are planning to build on the site of Rutland College which closes it doors at its current site over the summer. Previously the supermarket chain Waitrose had shown an interest in the site but later pulled out.

It is clear that Oakham is at some point going to get a third supermarket by concern of Sainsbury's taking the site is that their stores tend to ugly and that it won't fit into the tourist image of the town. Sainsbury's stores seem to be designed by cooperate planners to a standard design that resemble food warehouses and lack any kind of character. They might be practical in terms of what the supermarket wants to do as a business and the image it wants to portray but they could hardly be called designer buildings. There seems to be little if any consideration in the design about the nature of the environment in to which it places it stores and no local design input to the process. 

The location of the new store will of course bring extra traffic and congestion to Oakham and all the other reasons against said over and over again in letters to the local press why the site isn't ideal. But nobody uses the store will care about that as long as the car parking spaces are big enough for their 4x4's. My opinion is that the site has already been approved in the minds of Rutland County Council and we are stuck with that, after all Rutland County Council have a habit of ignoring what the local people think if they are going to get something out of it. 

The thing I question, other than the design, is does Oakham really need a Sainsbury's rather than another supermarket chain in the town. It might not something we have a say in or something the Rutland Country Council has a choice over, they are not the people selling the site, but my fear is that it will be like the new Sainsbury's in Stamford that seems always to be empty when I visit it. Although there seems to be a lot of support for Sainsbury's in the town I think most people see it as competition to Tesco's and think it will lower prices locally. The truth is that prices are set by supermarket chains regionally and not locally. It not that it is Sainsbury's they are after as such, but someone that will offer cheaper food prices. In that respect the town would do better having a different chain of supermarkets that compete with Tesco's nationally. Sainsbury's is hardly know as a cheap supermarket chain despite it's ugly buildings.

Personally I think this site will be approved by Rutland County Council and Oakham will have a Sainsbury's within a year. The former Rutland College site has to be redeveloped. As someone pointed out to me, it would be better to have a supermarket there than even more new homes. Given the local outcry the last time Sainsbury's was refused and Rutland County Council's love affair with developers, planning permission will be approved this time. The only question that remains are Rutland County Council strong enough to ask for something that fits in with the town or will we end up with some kind of cooperate designed brick and steel box.

Finally one good thing could come out of this, a gesture by Sainsbury's to the people of Oakham, the gifting of Barleythorpe Road field to the people. This site is currently owned by Tresham college who are selling the old Rutland College Site. If Barleythorpe Road field were to be sold to developers would be covered in houses within a year. However, if the site was brought by Sainsbury's as part of the deal and given to the people it would persevere this striking green space for future generations to enjoy. This is so important to Oakham which slowly becoming a red brick and grey jungle, a trend that  Rutland County Council is promoting and encouraging. 

Correct Again

Well they did it again, the refused the planning permission for a large out of town style Sainsbury's development on the edge of Oakham, this time at a full Council meeting in front of a hostile public gallery whipped up by the Sainsbury's corporate propaganda machine.

This won't be the end of the matter and as I type this Sainsbury's corporate machine will be gearing up it next move. As I write this some web designer and copy writer will be designing their web page which will be on their website soon urging people to write to the council, the press, anyone that will listen and complain. The corporate machine never stops or gives up. Sainsbury's will use any bully boy tactic it can think of to make sure that it wins.

Well done to the Council again, round two them. If it wasn't for the Hawksmead eco disaster you would have believed they really were keeping Rutland Rural and preserving it beauty for future generations.

Blog Published

I can now revealed that part of this blog has been published in the Rutland Times this week on the letter page. It was rather nice to get a email from the paper saying they accepted my letter last week. I should imagine in due course it will be on the letters page of the Rutland Times. It might not be the Times of London but it is nice to know you can make your voice heard if only locally.

A Correct Decision

Credit to the council for making the right decision for once despite the lobbying of a well known supermarket. The council on Tuesday night turned down a planning application by the supermarket chain Sainsbury's to open a supermarket as part of the proposed Hawksmead eco-disaster to the north west of Oakham.

There really no need for another supermarket in Oakham at the moment, especially one so big and all the problems it will cause in terms of increased traffic and the pollution that will bring to our lovely county. We have lived with the two supermarkets we have had in Oakham for many years and they fulfil our needs combined with the local shops in the high street and with online shopping there isn't even the need to travel to the surrounding cities any more. 

Many people claim that Sainsbury's would offer competition to Tesco's but this is unfounded. In fact they would competing against the CoOp and not Tesco's. What many people think is that supermarkets locally compete against each other and that having two major supermarkets in the town would keep the cost of things down but this is supermarket propaganda. Supermarkets compete and set prices regionally if not nationally. The Tesco's in Melton for example is not cheaper than the one in Oakham despite the more supermarkets in the area. In fact going out the region to Nottingham the Tesco's there are more expensive than the one in Oakham where the competition is even greater. So have more supermarkets doesn't mean lower prices at all.

I agree that another petrol station run by a supermarket might take a penny off the price of petrol, but given the fact traffic is light to medium around the county we do enjoy the benefit of not wasting petrol sitting in queues of traffic. The question is it worth a penny, when we have two petrol stations in the town that cater for our needs as it is. Is it really going to save us that much a year in the running costs of our cars given the other increases in motoring costs recently all caused by the Banking crisis and World events.

Assuming the Hawksmead eco-disaster, which I oppose, does go ahead as planned, it is still not clear we need a supermarket built on a green field site to add to shameful destruction of green field land that this development will bring to the county and the eco nightmare that will result. There is the brown field land available in the area and this should clearly be used before any green field land is even considered. This is both true of the Hawksmead eco-disaster and Sainsbury's plans to build a supermarket. For example it might be possible to save the village of Barleythorpe by using the land at former Ashwell prison for some for some the planned housing of the Hawksmead eco-disaster and provide a buffer around the village. I might not like the idea of the Waitrose development but at least in it's favour it is built on a brown field site.

The thing is that since all these plans were thought up the economic conditions in the county have changed dramatically. The whole development and the plan that is driving it needs to be considered in the light of what is happening to the area now. It should at least be put on hold or scaled down until things are more certain in the local economy.

The one thing I think people haven't really thought of, even leaving the environmental arguments aside, is what this Hawksmead eco-disaster will do to the economy of the county at the moment. Just looking at one measure of personal wealth, house prices, these will be driven down by the flood of new houses on the market. Then there is the employment question as to if there is enough growth nationally or locally to provide jobs that the people moving into the area will need when the local economy is already shrinking due to cuts in council spending and the loss of two major employers. Shouldn't we be stabilising the local economy and finding jobs for the people already out of work before we look to growth from outside the county. 

On Tuesday night the council for once made the correct choice. I just hope they can now look at all their plans before it is to late for the county. They really need to think hard about the Hawksmead eco-disaster and the problems it will cause and not the money they will get from the government for letting these eco terrorists build these house and spoil Rutland. I have seen some of the figures and we all know that greed, the problem that caused our problems now because of the Banks, is  driving factor behind Hawksmead eco-disaster, but we don't have to be greedy and we should all look at the big picture before supporting the developers plan. The money might be nice now but in twenty years time the legacy of the development will be a nightmare for our children. We should let the developers blind us with there polished presentations and promises of cash, what we should be doing is looking at preserving what makes Rutland one of the most beautiful places in England.

It is now important we keep the pressure on these people to stick to the decision they made on Tuesday evening. The Sainsbury's corporate machine won't let their plans die without a fight and we the people need to fight back. They have all ready been instructing people of Rutland write to the following people to express disappointment at turning down their plans on their website. The people that oppose it also need to do the same to the same to counteract this move.

Planning Officer

Patrick Gear - pgear@rutland.gov.uk - quote ref no 10/00178/FUL

Councillors for Oakham

Jeffrey Dale - jdale@rutland.gov.uk

Vijay Dighe - vdighe@rutland.gov.uk

Richard Gale - rgale@rutland.gov.uk

Trevor Lovell - tlovell@rutland.gov.uk

Mark Wells - mwells@rutland.gov.uk

Gene Plews - gplews@rutland.gov.uk

Peter Jones - pjones@rutland.gov.uk

Heather Wells: hwells@rutland.gov.uk

Councillor for Langham

Nicholas Wainwright - nwainwright@rutland.gov.uk

The Rutland Times

The Editor - rutland.editorial@jpress.co.uk

Just write a letter to these people and the newpaper showing that the local community is against the plans and stop the Sainsbury's corporate machine adding to the Hawksmead eco-disaster. You never know if we encourage them to stick to their decision we might be able to get them to revisit the scale of the Hawksmead eco-disaster and the affect it will have on Rutland and the surrounding area's.

Keep Rutland Beautiful