The dedicated planning meeting to decide the Tesco Ashton Gate planning application has been cancelled today without explanation.
This follows another Lib Dem/council officer fiasco today after Deputy Chief Exec Jon House and his sidekick Alun Owen appeared to take it upon themselves to tell the Cancer our multi-million pound strip of land at Ashton Gate was unbelievably only worth £250k.
This was possibly an announcement these officers hadn’t bothered clearing with their Lib Dem political bosses Jon Rogers and Mark Wright who then appeared on this blog within hours of the Cancer’s story to rebut their own officers and key advisors and claim this £250k figure for the land was a yearly income figure. This is unlikely.
Further pressure was also heaped upon the under seige council – now sitting firmly on the verge of a corruption scandal – when the representative body of the Church of England in Bedminster, the Bedminster Parochial Church Council published an open letter, also today, likening the money the football club expects to receive from Tesco – with the council’s full assistance – to the thirty pieces of silver Judas received for betraying Jesus Christ!
Strong stuff. Can the Lansdown Tesco plan survive?
The car park was destined to be a pork pie factory.
Good work local councillors if you indeed have responded rapidly. Where does this lead to now….
The car park was destined to be a pork pie factory.
Good work local councillors if you have pulled the plug on this.
Well I did warn to expect suprises. Searching back you will also find that I gave early warning of the problem with relying upon a sale to Tesco to support the new stadium and hence the world cup bid.
Whatever the planning committee might have done in a few days time Sainsbury and Asda would tie up the process for years with challenges.
There is also a strange paradox here in that the BB who is not noted for his blind faith in the EP has accepted that they gave a clear lucid and accurate report of the council officers words.
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Gary, if EP account of officer’s words is wrong you should say so. You don’t, so what should we make of that?
As a member of the public I can only go on what I’m told. Especially as the Post story appears to originate with Gary’s £135k a year Deputy Chief Exec, who’s directly responsible for PR and, in the case of Tesco/the stadium, is directly responsible for the news management.
Why are you employing an incompetent copper to do a job beyond his skills and abilities Gary?
We’ll await House’s correction on Monday then.
PS.
Gary, where’s House’s press release on the matter? That should clear up the confusion (and of course give equal access to all the city’s press, rather than favouring Northcliffe as a news outlet).
Oh! There isn’t one!
Was it an unofficial private briefing by two senior officers to Ian Onions then?
Isn’t an officer making unofficial (and, now, apparently inaccurate) approaches to the press a disciplinary matter?
It’s seems quite extraordinary that the most important issue in the city is subject to inaccurate press reporting after a private briefingthat the council has made no effort to correct.
When do we get House’s press release. Or will he correct through private briefings?
So what are Berate going to do now?
Sainsburys moving over the road is pretty much a zero sum game for local retailing and BERASA does not quite work as an acronym!
Any planning application from BCFC when it goes in – as things stand – will be to increase retail floorspace in the area.
Dave A, don’t believe everything put out by people with a lot to gain or lose. They just might possibly have some ulterior motive.
It’s no accident that this announcement of a possible deal (note well, it’s not been concluded) with Sainsburys is clearly timed to take the wind out of the sails of the NO campaign in the final days before the stadium decision on the 4th November.
Once the stadium decision’s in the bag then I suspect we’ll hear that the Sainsbury deal has ‘fallen through’ or that it doesn’t rule out another store openning on their old site after all, in which case we could be back to square one.
The NO campaign need to recognise this as a short term tactical manoeuvre designed to stall them. The 4th Nov planning decision in favour of the stadium may prejudice a later decision on the foodstore application, which is presumably why the decisions were originally planned to be on the same day.
Ooh I wish I was good at chess, then I would be able to see a few moves ahead.
As a side note both Asda and Sainsburys were noticeably quiet on their opinions of Tesco at Ashton.
I’m cautious about this until we know more of the detail.
On the surface, relocating Sainsburys seems to deal with the nil extra food retail argument and retains employment (maybe additional) for the area.
Also, we may get more (affordable) homes for our area which is something all local Cllrs have been asking for as more of a priority.
Traffic issues esp Winterstoke rd still remain an issue, as will access/improvement re Colliters Brook.
It may also reduce the risk of ‘cannabalising’ existing food store incl asda and the tesco express stores.
I’m sure many people, myself included, have suggested this as a better option to BCFC over the months.
Mark Bradshaw
We are told the Sainsbury store would be bigger than both their existing store and the proposed Tesco so the traffic and retail implications could still be serious, even if the existing Sainsburys converts to housing (which also has traffic and employment implications).
There’s no obvious major change compared to the Tesco proposal except that the existing Sainsburys site may be lost to retail, but how do we know if that is really going to happen?
The Ashton Gate site is less than 600 metres from North Street compared to over 1 km for the existing Sainsburys so might still have an unwelcome impact on North Street traders.
Otherwise the devil is in the detail and as yet nothing has been agreed (according to Post report) so there is no detail to peruse and there probably won’t be until a new planning application is made.
It looks like a face-saving retreat from Lansdown to me.
The number one fact here is that Lansdown has withdrawn an application to build a foodstore.
Only the Post could publish such a snivelling, drivelling, brownosing wretched little unquestioning article on the matter on their front page.
I suppose we have to see what happens in the spring. But Lansdown’s nose has been bloodied once now hasn’t it?
I agree $tevie Lansdown doesn’t like losing and perhaps the Tesco application was due to fail on 5 November.
If the stadium plan gets the nod on 4 November does that put even more pressure on an application for a superstore in the spring?
The thick plottens:
Jolly Jon and Support City both say on Twitter
http://twitter.com/CllrJonRogers/status/5124015437
http://twitter.com/SupportCity/status/5123995615
that the application is not withdrawn, which means – regardless of what the Post says – the same material conditions apply at present to a Sainsburys application in terms of retail floorspace, traffic etc.
Nothing’s changed! All objections still apply.
Indeed if you read Ian “The Tumour” Onions’ story today it’s all conditional and unattributable:
“It is believed the deal is with Sainsbury’s”
“Last night neither the club nor Sainsbury’s would comment on any new deal for Ashton Gate.”
“They are believed to be close to agreeing terms before signing a final deal.”
“The potential new deal”
So it’s all PR bollocks then.
Although:
“The Tesco plan is now effectively dead in the water and means that a planning application which was due to be heard next month at a special council meeting is expected be withdrawn.”
We await developments with interest.
This blog gets duller every time I come to it.
Um, urr… Sainsbury’s already have a huge store in Bedminster beside Winterstoke Road. Surely in the climate of sustainability and competition rules any planning committee should reject any development by the same supermarket, aside from additional concerns about competition.
Martyn, we are led to believe that Sainsburys will close their existing store if they relocate to Ashton Gate and redevelop the old site for housing.
But the new Sainsburys would be bigger than their existing store and bigger even than the proposed Tesco, if one believes what one reads in the Post.
Can you grant planning permission to one organisation (BCFC) and put binding legal conditions on an entirely different and unrelated organisation (Sainsburys)?
BB Planning permission covers the use of land – not who actually does it
However, it is a good point.
There is discussion about the Council receiving an annuity “in perpetuity” in return for land, land that would be required to allow a development granted planning permission to actually become a reality. If that land and thus the planning permission is sold on to a third party, and the annuity later fails to materialise what is the legal recourse? Can the council reclaim the land orginally provided?
Let’s face it, Local Councils are desparate for money and land-sale seems to be their only option at present. Assuming this all goes ahead, I would hope Bristol City Council does something really positive with any annuities, such as purchasing land in other parts of the city to preserve as green space.
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This is an amzing turnaround but I think Gary Hopkins did promise you surprises on this issue.
As the dust settles, it looks like….. nothing much has changed.
Headline EP story today may as well be “Nothing has changed”
The existing application will still be heard on 11th November, allowing BCFC an extra week in which to “convince” Councillors to approve.
Cook announces that a new plan would need a new application.
It will take more than this to surprise us!
The Sainsburys story looks Lib Dem inspired.
They’re the only ones talking about it. Presumably they’re trying to push the club into withdrawing the current application?
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