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No Tesco in Stokes Croft Showdown

Elisabeth Winkler | 07.12.2010 08:22

Wednesday 8 December at College Green 2 pm

Out of 500 local people surveyed, 93% said "No to Tesco in Stokes Croft".

Thousands of people have written to Bristol City Council to object.

In the light of this week's announcement from the Coalition of new planning laws to give locals "people-power", has the community been listened to?

Find out this Wednesday.
Tesco picked the wrong place when it set its sights on the eighteenth-century building at 138-142 Cheltenham Road in Stokes Croft - one of the UK's last urban high streets without a corporate retailer.

Tesco bought the lease on Jesters comedy club and applied for change-of-use to shop in September 2009.

It used a third-party so that change-of-use was granted without the planners realising this was for no ordinary shop.

In fact it was for a huge food chain that keeps its stores in centralised depots and articulated lorries.

Tesco operates just-in-time-deliveries - it estimates at least six daily lasting about 40 minutes each.

The increased traffic will impact on Cheltenham Road's cycle lane, bus lane and two pedestrian crossings.

Extra traffic and noise are two of the issues raised at the last council meeting on September 22.

Have the planners listened?

Their response to local objections is even more significant coming the same week that the Coalition promises a reform of the planning system that aims to grant communities:

"...more people-planning and less politician-planning, so there is more direct democracy and less bureaucracy in the system," according to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government,

Greg Clark, Minister for Planning and Decentralisation, says:

"The Coalition Government will revolutionise the planning process by taking power away from officials and putting it into the hands of those who know most about their neighbourhood - local people themselves."

The Bristol City Council meeting is at 2.00pm on Wednesday 8 December.

Please assemble at 1 pm outside the Canteen on 80, Stokes Croft or meet at College Green at 2.00 pm for a carnival rally.


Elisabeth Winkler
- Original article on IMC Bristol: http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/702412