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Leamington Letters #53: The white elephant in the room

22/9/2013

35 Comments

 
The opening salvo of the next stage of the campaign to build yet another shopping arcade in Leamington was fired last Friday in a bizarre news article in the Courier.

The article purported to be a report of a meeting on the previous Thursday evening at which 'small business owners learned more' about the new plans of council and developers 'to build a £90 million shopping centre in Leamington town centre' (sic).

Except, of course, the Courier goes to press before the meeting took place, so the use of the past tense is just a tad disingenuous. The reporter confirmed to me that he was not at the meeting, and so couldn't actually report it. My guess is that he merely changed the tense of the press release from the council or the Federation of Small Businesses, under the aegis of which the meeting was held. But I could be wrong.

According to my sources, attendance was about 10 or 12; probably the first time such a small gathering has received such prominent coverage.

But that is not the point. The point is that this is one of ways in which the illusion of 'consultation' is projected to the town. This ’report’ will be quoted in months to come by the advocates of the scheme as evidence of the ways in which the council engaged with major stakeholders. 

We've been here before, of course, when letters inviting those businesses which would be affected to meetings were not actually delivered. We’ve watched Powerpoint presentations which made statements but never showed evidence.  We listened to developers promise to get back to us but they never did.

We rallied and we argued and the proposals were defeated at the planning stage.

Clearly, we had won a battle but not a war. Because here we go again, with the council using their vast resources - how do they justify using our own business rates to destroy us? - to relaunch the whole thing, this time using an 'independent report' as its starting point.

This report, which is neither Portus nor Grimsey, is the third such report commissioned by the council in the last ten years. According to the Courier, it "highlights a need for a new shopping centre the size of the Clarendon Arcade to draw shoppers back into Leamington”.

What a surprise?! A report commissioned by the council coming up with a conclusion devoutly wished by the council. “The size of the Clarendon Arcade”? Really? How fortuitous. 

Philip Clarke, the senior projects co-ordinator for WDC, last seen in 2012 taking credit for the fact that Leamington was doing better in attracting shoppers than any of its neighbouring competition and therefore, you might think, not requiring anything “to draw shoppers back into Leamington”, is quoted as saying: “this was part of our programme to engage with some of the main stakeholder groups which also include BID and the Chamber of Trade.”

When I spoke to BID on Friday afternoon, they had no idea what I was talking about and rushed off to buy a copy of the paper!

It is in fact part of a long-term battle by the planning department to develop the Chandos Street car park, which it owns.

In their determination to create this new arcade, they are destroying what remains of the heart of a Regency town, ignoring the evidence of their own eyes - the masses of empty stores - and once again sentencing those residents, retailers and restaurants in the area to another long period of uncertainty.

But what do they care?

These are the guys who also make it virtually impossible to park in Leamington in order to use the High Street attractions. They haven't read the Grimsey Report, which recommends that there should be a 'free two hour high street and town centre car parking system'.

Actually, they probably have read it. But they've ignored it. Because they want to play at being builders. Free parking would transform local business. We all know that. 

Existing businesses, independent businesses, local residents, you just keep paying your rates while we spend the money paying consultants and offering deals to 'anchor stores’. 

(And just wait for the rumours about John Lewis coming to town to start again as they did last time.)

As the Grimsey Report says, a necessary precondition of re-establishing our high streets is that we accept that “there is already too much retail space in the UK and that bricks and mortar retailing can no longer be the anchor to create thriving high streets and town centres”.

This is of course an ’independent report’. But it’s not the independent report that Mr Clarke and developers Wilson Bowden want. It’s the report that rate-payers and townspeople want, because it addresses real, day-to-day concerns.

We know that there are empty retail premises all over this town and probably more to come. More bricks and mortar means more empty premises that we, in the end, have to pay for.

Unfortunately, empiricism and common sense have seldom been relevant in this town and it sure as hell isn’t in this debate.

The Courier piece showed, first, that the council officers and the developers are already starting their campaign to influence the councillors; and second, that the Courier is complicit.

We need to get moving. This time, unless we respond quickly, they might actually succeed in building - at huge cost - a white elephant which will destroy our town.

(The Strategic Perspectives report is available here: http://www.warwickdc.gov.uk/WDC/Planning/
Planning+policy/Local+Development+Framework/
Evidence+Base/default.htm  


Geoff Renshaw in the Leamington Society's newsletter http://leamingtonsociety.org.uk/Newsletters/
August%202013%20Newsletter.pdf provides a reasoned, informed and compelling response which I commend to you. 


Also, you can download the Grimsey Report at http://towns.org.uk/files/
GrimseyReview04.09.pdf).

35 Comments
George
22/9/2013 09:47:02

They won't give up, will they? I sat next to you at one of the original consultations. Consultation? Merely a presentation. Ask a question and they did't have an answer. If this goes through, we're moving out. Which is probably what they want - we're a small shop.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:38:31

I remember. And I remember pointing out that a slide hadn't shown anything, merely stated an unproven need. To consult involves dialogue and a willingness to change a mind, not merely a presentation of one case.

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Michael
22/9/2013 09:54:57

This is a continuation of your argument over chain restaurants. But now, they want a chain department store or similar: the 'anchor', Significant that they held the meeting in the Star & garter, which of course will be one of the few decent places unaffected by the development. Do these people even live in Leamington? Or are they from outside and want Leamington to take all the shit?

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Max
25/9/2013 04:40:22

Of course councillors from Warwick and kenilworth get to vote. And you can't blame them for thinking that if it's built in Leamington, it won't be in their backyard. I think it's a good idea that the Town Manager should live in the town.

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Michael
25/9/2013 05:33:43

Yes, the Town Manager. It should be a condition of the job. This is one of the problems. Warwick, Kenilworth and Leamington are all part of the same council, and Leamington is consistently outvoted. Of those councillors who voted for the proposal last time, how many were representing Leamington wards?

Oliver
22/9/2013 10:07:14

The officers of the council are out of the control - that's the problem. Where does Philip Clarke get his power? From councillors who don't know what he's doing and just go along with his recommendations. It was very close last time. Thank you to those councillors who went against the department recommendation. This time? The academic case is clearly against them but they have mega-positions and -titles and -salaries and they are determined to mess up our town. Where are the councillors? Our representatives? We need to talk to them to stop this nonsense and these expensive repots once for all. How much did this last one cost?

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Max
25/9/2013 04:42:21

It was close last time. I have had a call from and conversation with Mr Clarke in which he did say that the Courier report gave the impression of an early application for planning permission, but that this was not the case.

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Max
25/9/2013 05:37:27

... And I also wrote to Chris White MP, for whom I have a great deal of respect, but apart from the computer-generated acknowledgement, I have yet to receive a reply.

Mark
22/9/2013 10:12:22

The Courier is about as useless a local newspaper as I have ever encountered. They should be going out to talk to Leamington people, not merely regurgitating press releases from the establishment. I went out and bought the damn thing and you're right: the mish-mash of tenses is illiterate and misleading. But this is Leamington Spa. We don't have a say.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:43:43

I do not read it on a regular basis. If this is an example of how they report, I will do so only in order to get a sense of what is being planned for us.

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Bruce R
22/9/2013 10:23:32

The article is actually quite funny. Take the quote from Clarke. First para: 'was' (past). Second para: 'speak' (present). Third para: 'thought' (past). Whoever wrote it didn't know what the hell he was doing. And you also get that 'the meeting had been organised ...'. Presumably it had been but wasn't subsequently. Or maybe not. I suspect the whole town shares your frustration with the council and the paper.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:44:48

I enjoyed the 'had been' as well. Certainly I have had many calls and communications regarding this - more even than last time round.

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GeoffM
22/9/2013 10:35:26

Thank you for drawing our attention to this. And you are right that this clearly a combined council/courier move. Those of us who practise the black arts of Pr know that we start small and build. That's what this is. Who will remember how many were there? They will merely be told that the FSB was 'consulted'.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:45:50

I am afraid this is true.

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Leamington Retailer
22/9/2013 11:59:56

Thanks Max. But we've decided that enough is enough. We're selling up and moving away . Sorry.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:46:46

This is a real shame. This is still a good town and we need you.

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CJ
23/9/2013 00:57:59

No photograph. No music. You really are serious!

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Max
25/9/2013 04:47:16

Deadly.

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Charlotte Ford
23/9/2013 04:14:56

Always depressing to contemplate the calculated trickery of those set upon a course of quick financial gain at any cost to whatever stands in its way. I hope the proposed plan fails.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:48:22

Thanks Charlotte. I am convinced that this is a 'campaign' and that it is being initiated with malice aforethought.

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Gus Jackson
23/9/2013 06:12:18

I admire your fighting spirit, but we are fighting a losing battle. Or as the courier would say! have been fighting a losing battle. One way or another, they will get it through. Too much money involved to listen to the likes of us.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:51:12

We can't just accept these things with resignation. Homes and livelihoods are at stake. Despite council and developer resources and PR machines, we can do something. And the earlier the issue is raised, the better.

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MichaelMac
23/9/2013 12:25:17

The key is Grimsey's statement. Another mall is adding to the problem not solving it.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:52:28

The Grimsey is a well reasoned report which questions the assumptions of the new development. I commend it to you everyone and have posted the link.

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MichaelMac
25/9/2013 05:41:53

Yes, thanks for this link - and the others. This is the only place I know where these are available. Which is significant in itself. Trying to get into the WDC site is (deliberately?) difficult.

JamesG
24/9/2013 02:19:09

Good money says they will fill it with another 9 different places to get a bloody pizza if they had their way too!!

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Max
25/9/2013 04:53:21

Undeniably true. Undeniably depressing.

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Lola link
24/9/2013 07:47:25

I am a humble resident of Leamington, and I support your comments to the letter. What can I do to help the situation?

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Max
25/9/2013 04:54:37

Hi Lola - like your blog! Be at the meetings. Write/talk to councillors. Don't let them win by default. I'll be in touch.

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AnnPWood
25/9/2013 02:54:14

The last town 'shopping mall' they built was a disaster and is now a hotel and a Coop - do they never learn?? Nothing wrong with hotels or Coops btw but just build them and cut straight to the chase missing out the painful middle bit.

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Max
25/9/2013 04:56:20

Yes. The last Wilson Bowden - Livery Street - has been sold again and will apparently be a new 'restaurant quarter'. Even more of James's pizza outlets one suspects.

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Stephen
25/9/2013 06:07:01

Is Livery Street a Wilson Bowden development? Didn't realise. No wonder it has never been completely occupied since it opened. Such a depressing street.

myers
25/9/2013 03:40:29

There is another way:- I have just returned from Chesterfield where the council has just completed an upgrade to its town centre. The old indoor market has been refurbished and extended in red brick Victorian splendour. There are a dozen or more colour co-ordinated, traditional market stalls, and the whole area is now pedestrianised with cobbles and paving. The point WCC is that the area is thriving with locals and tourists alike not to mention the benefit to surrounding cafe and pubs etc!

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Max
25/9/2013 04:58:14

Exactly right. And as a result, it attracts more visitors, more residents. It's the quality of life within the town that matters. Good for Chesterfield.

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Sean
25/9/2013 06:08:16

What a dispiriting and wearying battle. good on you Max, and all you others, who are not taking this abomination lying down, and all power to you.
A campaign that garners regional and then national attention is needed, perhaps through links with others fighting for the souls of their own towns. I suggest you stand for council, Max.

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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