Tesco create planning chaos....

Even before they have built their new store, Tesco have already set in motion the destruction of Castle Douglas as a rural market town. For 150 years, Castle Douglas has been home to Wallets Mart. The mart site (see 'A stroll around Castle Douglas' blog) is covers several acres next to the Market Hill. Wallets also own land around the town. This dates back to the days when sheep and cattle were walked to market and rested over night in fields around the town before being auctioned.

Now a key planning point we made against Tesco was that the site they had chosen was right on the edge of town and separated from the town centre by a 5 spur roundabout and a 15 minute walk. Tesco argued that no alternative location was feasible. Dumfries and Galloway Council paid £10 000 to retail consultants GVA Grimley to check this out.

Grimley' s agreed with us. The site chosen by Tesco was not appropriate. Grimley 's even offered ( at the public planning committee meeting on March 11th 2005)to support the Council should they refuse Tesco planning permission on these grounds. The offer was not taken up.

Unfortunately, Grimley' s also identified a much better site - Wallets Mart. "Ah, but Wallets are not willing to sell up and move out" the meeting was assured. Oh really?

In evidence submitted this June to a Public Inquiry into the Local Plan, where Wallets were arguing that the fields they own next to the Tesco site should be zoned for housing, there is a record of a meeting held on 22 April 2004 between Wallets, their planning consultant and D and G planners. It is clear from this that Wallets were looking over a year ago to relocate their Mart out of town and sell off the land for retail and residential use. This proposal was accepted and the Mart site is now zoned for retail/ residential use. The Tesco plan was also discussed.

With me so far? Good.

The Garden Centre problem.
Part of the land Tesco have bought is occupied by a garden centre. perhaps naively, the garden centre owner sold to Tesco before he had got planning permission to relocate to a 'just out of town' site. With wonderful irony, he has been refused planning permission, on exactly the same planning points we tried to use against Tesco - i.e. impact on vitality and viability of town centre, distance from town centre etc. etc. The one difference was that the Wallets Mart proposal to build house on the neighbouring field (home to the annual local ' Stewartry Agricultural Show') was mentioned as a factor. If the garden centre was allowed to relocate to a 'just outside town' site, this would make it difficult to deny Wallets permission to build houses in the show field and so would start a process of unchecked expansion of the town out to the Castle Douglas Bypass , going against the whole thrust of national/ Scottish planning policy.... especially since Wallets also own land next to the bypass (although this was not mentioned in the planning officers decision, it is in the 'File Note' for the April 22 2004 meeting).

Result? Outrage! Letters page of Galloway News had to go to two pages to print all the 'angry of Auchenshoogl' letters. The garden centre owner, Les (not Vic) Reeves, is to appeal against the decision and has got 1000 customers to sign a petition of support...

There seems to be total incomprehension - how did Tesco manage to get planning permission for a supermarket no-one wants, but a garden centre (the only one locally) which is 'needed' can't? But equally, none seems to have grasped the point that shifting the garden centre (and allowing it to double in size) would set in motion a train of events which would destroy castle Douglas as a rural market town.

By letting Tesco drive a coach and horses (or should that be tractor and trailer?) through the planning system, our Council have sold out Castle Douglas. But then again, neither Les Reeves nor even Wallets Marts plc have the same economic resources and political clout as Tesco. To put it bluntly, Tesco are free to operate outside the planning system, but local businesses, no matter how large or popular, do not share this freedom.

Even if a rival supermarket chain wanted to build on the Wallets Mart site (assuming Wallets can relocate), the 'spare retail capacity' GVA Grimley' s identified as existing in Castle Douglas will have been taken up by Tesco. This argument has already been used against the garden centre. Les Reeves wanted to double the size of his existing garden centre shop /cafe. "Oh no you can't", he was told, "the Tesco development has absorbed all of the predicted retail growth for Castle Douglas for the next ten years.... Snookered!

And finally.... can I say a rude word?

"Shit". there, I have said it. (Apologies to those of a sensitive disposition),

Along with hundreds of other communities in Scotland, the 'natural' growth of Castle Douglas has been blocked fro the past few years by a lack of essential infrastructure. Our sewage system is at maximum capacity. There are two aspects. 1. The actual waste treatments works is full to overflowing and 2. at present treated waste water flows out into a ditch called the Tarry Burn (from days when it carried waste from town's gas works) which winds its way through a Site of Special Scientific Importance/ Special Protected Area/ RAMSAR (international designation) wetland to the river Dee.

Problem 1. has yet to be tackled, but problem 2. has been sorted. Tesco are going to pay to put the outfall from the sewage works into a pipeline, at an estimated cost of £1.8 million. Mind you, they may not be paying the full whack. Planning permission for a new health centre was given last August. Work on it has only now started, but the cost has risen mysteriously by £1 million. No doubt co-incidentally, the cost of the sewage pipeline has also risen since last August: from £600 000 to £1.8 million. The original route of the pipeline ran straight through the SSSI/SPA/RAMSAR site so got thrown out by Scottish Natural Heritage, hence the price rise..

To go back to the 22 April 2004 meeting (see above)... at this meeting, Wallets Marts pointed out that their activities cause 'periodic fluctuations' in sewage flows i.e. when they hose down the livestock pens after an auction. If the Mart was relocated out of town, this would remove the problem and so create more capacity for residential opportunities...

Enough. I could go on for pages (and no doubt will) about the fallout from the Tesco planning decision. It will be sad, but watch this space for an online blow by blow description of the death of a rural market town....