Is it RIP Ledbury? (From Malvern Gazette)

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Is it RIP Ledbury?

11:18am Friday 3rd February 2012 in Letters

AS we approach the deadline for people to comment on the proposed Sainsbury’s out of town superstore, I must encourage as many people as possible to make their views known to Herefordshire Council’s chief planning officer Andrew Ashcroft.

Our campaign – Save Ledbury – is about keeping the magic of our town, ranked as one of the country’s favourites in a recent BBC poll.

What is at stake is not shopping – it’s about a sense of place, about jobs in the wider rural economy, about local, small outlets for food, about the historic fabric of the town, it’s about Ledbury’s soul.

People are intensely proud of Ledbury. And people who have lived elsewhere understand how uniquely special and valuable our town is.

Are we, like so many others, to become a ‘clone town’ of chain store multiples – or worse, a ghost town where half the shops are boarded up or turned into fast food joints?

Superstore supporters accuse us of scare-mongering. Yes, the professional spin-doctors employed by Sainsbury’s at vast expense are busy offering ‘rebuttals’ and denials. But consider the evidence… Five independent reports by three separate companies have reached the same conclusion that the proposed Sainsbury’s is just too big for Ledbury, and it’s in the wrong place, nearly a mile out of town.

The retail experts agree that there isn’t enough trade to go round to support a new vast Sainsbury’s, our current two supermarkets and the smaller shops in the High Street.

Shops will close.

Out of town retail developments are universally agreed to be a bad thing for local town centres. Even Sainsbury’s use this fact to help win them approval for their town centre stores.

Yet here in Ledbury, Sainsbury’s are arguing the opposite, that there will be no loss of linked trips, and their out of town location will have no impact at all on the vitality of the town – in fact remarkably, it will be good for the town.

The development people will say anything to suit their own purposes, and it’s sad so many ordinary people place their trust in them, only to realise the truth when it’s too late.

This is not a rehearsal. If this superstore is built, and the people who say ‘it will not damage Ledbury’ despite all the mass of evidence to the contrary, are proved right, then we will have achieved the miracle result that no other market town in the UK has achieved.

If, however, they are wrong, and we are right, then R.I.P Ledbury as we know it.

We do not have to make this decision now, nor should our town councillors be pushed into making an irreversible decision for Ledbury just because a superstore operator has barged in with a planning application, one of hundreds up and down the country.

In December the Localism Bill became law.

All the people of Ledbury, not just a few unelected citizens in the town council, now have the right to decide how they would like their patch of England to be developed over the next few years.

The first meeting took place this week to start the process of planning our Neighbourhood, and it is open to every single citizen of Ledbury to join in.

It may be that we all together decide to plan to revisit the superstore option in a couple of years, or five or 10. We may decide to look at having a complete retail park, or we may decide to persuade James Hervey-Bathurst to turn Eastnor into a safari park! But it will be our decision what is ultimately enshrined in that neighbourhood plan, which will become a legal framework for the future.

If you care, write to the planners at Herefordshire Council and tell them how you feel by e-mailing planning_ enquiries@herefordshire.gov.uk

RICH HADLEY
Save Ledbury

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