Sainsbury Meeting in Cheddar

SAINSBURY

I attended the Sainsbury's meeting on 5th December at Kings of Wessex school.

Here are some of my impressions.

1. 6 out of 15 members of the Sedgemoor Planning/Development Committee
    showed up. Or as the chairman, an individual named Filmer, put it...  "...over half."

2. Persons on stage. (left to right).
    a. 3 from Sainsbury's. ( 2 consultants/hired opinions, and one Sainsbury's man.)
    b. 2 from Sedgemoor District Council. One from 'Democratic Services' .
        Second person was a legal officer.
    c. Chairman
    d. 2 Planning/Policy people from Sedgemoor DC. 


3.. Right from the start the chairman, Filmer, stated that the people on stage were not there to answer questions from the floor (alternatively known as... local people who had turned up on a  freezing night. ).  They were instead there to give responses to pre-prepared, pre-selected questions which appeared on a screen.

    Protests and quite loud objections began almost immediately. And within moments and minutes, people started to leave. This continued in one's and two's until about 2/3rds of the way in, a small group got up to leave, and right away about 30 - 35% of those still present also got up and left.


4. To me, it was pretty clear from the utterances of the 2 Sedgemoor policy officials that they are already primed, by councillors presumably, to favour the application. In particular their references to the allegedly unattractive state of the local area. And also when challenged from the floor about whether the proposals breached a particular aspect of the 2009 strategic policy  one replied ... "It may do.., however .., 3 years is a long time in retail, and we are looking again at that".

    This basically said to me that policy and local strategy is being re-written, or re-interpreted to suit the needs and desires of Sainsbury's.

5. Outside, afterwards, I passed several other attendees as I walked to my car. One was in the middle of saying, with some certainty ".. there is no silent majority." I didn't hang about to hear more. It wasn't hanging around weather.

    A day or two later I phoned Sedgemoor District Council Democratic Services. I had previously spoken with them about there being no public records kept of the voting behaviour of councillors. I spoke with Leila X. I mentioned that she had attended the meeting , and noted that she had sat there all night, through all the protests, objections and stifling of discussion by the chairman. And not said a word. I asked if she would like to make some kind of comment, bearing in mind that the sign above her head said 'Democratic Services'. This didn't go down too well. And she had no comment.


6. My impressions of previous events.

A few years ago, there were two local Lanes Hardware shops. One in Cheddar, one in Winscombe. In my opinion both were viable.  Not fortune making, the Winscombeone in particular. But viable.  The owner(s) of Lanes chose to embark on a program of  financial and property engineering. The most obvious results were..

a. Lanes in Winscombe closed, and it became a charity shop.
b. Lanes sold the Cheddar shop to Tescos, and opened a cheap replacement nearby. 
c. When Tesco Express opened, within 3 weeks the shop 2 doors down stated that their turnover had reduced by 50%, and that they would close. They did, and it's now a charity shop.
d. The presence of Tescos did no favours for the now closed and boarded-up butchers shop a few doors     further down.
e. The small bakers/coffee place opposite the library. Eventually closed. Not completey the fault of Tescos,    but a major contributor.
e. Just round the corner from Tescos, shortly after, the Co-Op closed their store, and instead chose to invest in refurbishing their Axbridge and Winscombe stores.

What Tescos and Lanes, imo, have mostly created was money for themselves, several more charity shops, the eventual closure of a whole clutch of locally run shops, and the out-muscling and departure of the Co-Op.