Tesco finally submits plan for Northgate supermarket (From This is The West Country)
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Tesco finally submits plan for Northgate supermarket
7:00am Tuesday 30th October 2012 in News By Matthew Colledge
An artist's impression of the proposed store.
NEARLY two years after it was given the nod to buy a huge site in Bridgwater, Tesco has finally submitted a planning application to build a giant supermarket on it.
Sedgemoor District Council and Somerset County Council, which both own parts of Northgate, agreed in January 2011 to sell to Tesco.
The supermarket chain was expected to submit an application for a giant Extra store, creating 260 jobs, last October.
But instead, the scheme was only passed to the district council this month.
The public still cannot find out any details about it, though, because the council says it has not yet been registered due to “an outstanding technical matter”.
A council spokesman said there was nothing unusual about a delay with an application of this size, and the scheme could be registered within days.
The spokesman said: “There is an outstanding technical matter with the application that needs to be resolved before the application can be registered, which is the subject of on-going discussions between Tesco and planning officers.
“Once the application is registered, it will be a public document and will appear on SDC’s website and available for inspection in Bridgwater House.”
A Tesco spokesman confirmed representatives of the supermarket have visited Bridgwater to meet with councillors and officers to explain details about the application.
However, campaign group Bridgwater Forward, which opposed the demolition of the Splash swimming pool in Northgate and the subsequent decision by the two councils to sell to Tesco, said there had been a “deathly silence” over the issue.
A group spokesman said: “Tesco and Sedgemoor know that there will be enormous opposition to the application, which has caused the loss of our town centre swimming pool and involves the sale of a major town-centre open space into private ownership.”
The group says it carried out a survey of Bridgwater shoppers, 61% of whom said they would refuse to shop at Tesco.
The supermarket has also this week released images showing how the new play area proposed as part of the store bid might look.
Comments(21)
shelbatross
says...
8:21am Tue 30 Oct 12
sibby1970
says...
9:47am Tue 30 Oct 12
RustyKnight
says...
10:14am Tue 30 Oct 12
At the moment the view consists of the Brewery Field and a car park, if Tesco gets built that will be gone and replaced with an ugly monstrosity that will have trucks delivering at all hours.
Building a Tesco supermarket at Northgate won't help the town centre that much and Eastover will still be dead unless you want food.
mayrose
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10:24am Tue 30 Oct 12
Anonymous Me
says...
10:27am Tue 30 Oct 12
I'm all for the updating of the towns facilities and shopping options.
What with the new schools soon to be opened, a brand new swimming pool and the potential that Hinkley 'C' could provide, we should all be more positive about this town.
Perhaps now all the other Supermarkets will push forward their plans for improvement, since they have been waiting for Tesco's to make their move first.
Let's not let the media with their doom & gloom reporting stir up a hornets nest, we all know they like to report on conflict and make it happen even if it's not there ! Remember 'no news is good news'.
(Now I expect to see the negative commentators come out of the woodwork!).
awayswing
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10:34am Tue 30 Oct 12
Anonymous Me
says...
11:40am Tue 30 Oct 12
awayswing wrote:It is up to the individual shops to recognise that there are extra people passing their premises as they walk from Asda to the town centre, and to make their businesses appealing.
Asda has done nothing to increase the number of shops in Eastover,so why should Tesco's increase the number and variety of shops on the other side of the river?
How many shops in Eastover have had any improvements done to them this Century and how many open before 10 a.m. on Saturday?
They are not making life easy for themselves by doing the very bare minimum.
shelbatross
says...
12:17pm Tue 30 Oct 12
swjoduk
says...
12:41pm Tue 30 Oct 12
I will probably still shop in Sainsburys and Aldi although I may switch back to Tesco as this is where I did most of my shopping before I moved to Bridgwater.
MBR Extreme
says...
1:20pm Tue 30 Oct 12
the voice of common sense
says...
3:07pm Tue 30 Oct 12
Good news for the town as a whole because it means that more people will stay in Bridgwater to do their shopping rather than going to taunton, because a Tesco extra will sell everything so it will serve everyone.
On the original planning document there were also seven other retail units so perhaps other national stores will come to our town and make it an even better place to live.
Bridgwater is a fantastic place to live, be proud of our town and the fact that multi national stores and manufacturers want to come to our town and bring some prosperity to us.
Hinckley point will add even more prosperity to the town so fight against the rent-a-mob who are campaigning against it, we have lived with it for the last 60 years, and another 60 years won't make any difference
We are a fast growing town so be proud of it, don't try to drag us back to the 1950's like some people want to.
Anonymous Me
says...
3:32pm Tue 30 Oct 12
the voice of common sense wrote:Well done to 'the voice of common sense' and all the others who have added some positive comments, it's just a shame you are not all in charge of this town, we need someone in charge who will get things done, instead of talking it over for months and adding it to a 20 year improvement plan that never gets started.
Come on Bridgwater backwards, don't forget that the pool at chilton is nearly ready, a real swimming pool not a paddling pool like the splash! (funded by the cash that Tesco will be paying for the land to build their store on)
Good news for the town as a whole because it means that more people will stay in Bridgwater to do their shopping rather than going to taunton, because a Tesco extra will sell everything so it will serve everyone.
On the original planning document there were also seven other retail units so perhaps other national stores will come to our town and make it an even better place to live.
Bridgwater is a fantastic place to live, be proud of our town and the fact that multi national stores and manufacturers want to come to our town and bring some prosperity to us.
Hinckley point will add even more prosperity to the town so fight against the rent-a-mob who are campaigning against it, we have lived with it for the last 60 years, and another 60 years won't make any difference
We are a fast growing town so be proud of it, don't try to drag us back to the 1950's like some people want to.
Taunton are moaning because we have good employment, lets hope we can attract some shops of equal status to them at long last.
Rolly trolley
says...
10:48am Wed 31 Oct 12
JOOLES
says...
12:06pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Dr. Lewis Beltgun
says...
12:17pm Wed 31 Oct 12
awayswing
says...
9:45am Thu 1 Nov 12
Anonymous Me wrote:Asda has a large car park in front of it and I imagine that people do their shopping and go straight home.The quickest way to the town centre from there is via West Quay not Eastover.Since the arrival of Asda the number of empty shops in Eastover has become more and more noticable.At the time of Asda's planning application it was suggested that Eastover would benefit from Asda's arrival,clearly the opposite is true.
awayswing wrote:It is up to the individual shops to recognise that there are extra people passing their premises as they walk from Asda to the town centre, and to make their businesses appealing.
Asda has done nothing to increase the number of shops in Eastover,so why should Tesco's increase the number and variety of shops on the other side of the river?
How many shops in Eastover have had any improvements done to them this Century and how many open before 10 a.m. on Saturday?
They are not making life easy for themselves by doing the very bare minimum.
Has anybody heard when work will start on the new hotel in Eastover or does that hinge on HP2 being built?Has anybody heard of any plans for Westgate House or Odeon Buildings.Recently on the Mercury site there was a lot of comment about brownfield sites,the latter two,I presume,are not brown field but doing something with these eyesores would be a good thing.Westgate House has had a sold sign over it for months but nothing seems to be happening.
swjoduk
says...
12:18pm Thu 1 Nov 12
Surely land such as this should be developed before greenfield sites.
touchstone
says...
12:41pm Thu 1 Nov 12
Oh hang on, they already have..
touchstone
says...
1:19pm Thu 1 Nov 12
Dr. Lewis Beltgun wrote:But it will, take away income, whether the stores regardless of quality.
And here I was expecting a slew of comments from ignorant NIMBYs bleating about how a Tesco store will take away income from all the quality small businesses that Bridgwater doesn't have.
And here is a link to an independent assessment of a similar proposal by Tesco..
http://www.powys.gov
.uk/uploads/media/Te
sco_Machynlleth_Draf
t_Report_SEPT_2011_b
i.pdf
Doverbeme
says...
9:44pm Fri 2 Nov 12
twinkles says...
8:09am Tue 30 Oct 12
I'd like Tesco to know that there are some residents looking forward to their return.