The Development Continues Or Does It?

So in an earlier blog entry I mentioned that my own town is in the process of a long development of improvement? in the town centre and in particular the retail area. More changes have taken place and we've been promised by a Borough Councillor that temporary buildings are ready to be erected for essential services whilst the old buildings are demolished and new premises built for them to move into. This on top of concern that there is no physical signs of this happening.

On the other hand last week the town's free sheet ran a story suggesting that we are getting close to a time delay clause in the construction of the next big phase of the development where the contractors could in theory(pull out)but again this has been downplayed by the Councillor who in the article also says that he will take up the concerns of this article.

Now, the expansion to the Tesco's supermarket in town continues...there is noise and odd little signs that suggest the extension is taking place, there is some alteration in the times people are allowed to shop so they can get on with the work but so far I have not really seen anything that says to me its only a matter of weeks before we see it completed. Of course Tesco's will be(I assume)using their own contractors and it has nothing to do with the original plans.

Update:Another Councillor who is on the county Council has given the Town's Free sheet permission to print his findings regarding the hold up on the town's lack of progress in the town centre. It has been put down to the property developers.

15 legal agreements have been agreed and just require signatures. But as 9 of them were signed some time ago you could be excused for asking why the remaining 6 remain unsigned. The whole project will not go ahead until all is signed.

The developers is that extra money is required by the developers for a multi purpose building that is going to house a number of amenities that are important to most towns such as a Health Centre, Library, a contact point for the Council and a kind of community building where some events and refreshments are available.

An example has been given that the Health Centre will cost in excess of £600,000 more than originally estimated and its stated that some of the specifications are over and above the original requirements. They have not budgeted for this but the article suggests that they and the County Council believed the extras were already included in the costings agreed last year.

Nothing will happen until this is sorted.
Once work on the building commences a time frame of around a year is given for completion and the rest of Phase 2 approx 18 months.

However, the neighbouring town of Darlington have completed the public consultations as to whether Tesco's would be allowed to build a new branch in the centre of town near an historic church with new Town Hall and some luxury apartments and in an earlier entry I mentioned that another supermarket was interested but their proposals seem to have been kept reasonably unknown and a story broke in the local press as to how this was all being handled by the Town Council.

Whatever the latest report says that this project has been rejected publicly as has any rival proposal put forward by any other supermarket. But an actual decision will not be made by the Council until November.

It basically comes down to trying to keep some character of what Darlington is/was as much of it is being changed already with a larger part of the centre being pedestrianised, traffic being kept away and many more retailers and leisure facilities being brought into the town. As someone said in the article "This is a Market Town, so lets celebrate the fact and try and keep the market side of things alive and we already have access to four supermarkets of which some of those are already quite central to the town"

Well, many people travel out of this town for shops in Darlington so if those in Darlington really want to get to a Tesco's they may like to travel here(its only around 7 miles)but it already has so many good retailers really there is little need to travel to shop.

So this time Tesco's has not succeeded in their plans.

Now, let me say though critical of some of its practises(and I do sometimes wish that we had been allowed another retailer)there are things that they do well, I do manage to get some lovely items and a range of products that are lovely but...some years ago, I remember Sainsbury's being criticised of having empty shelves where shoppers found items missing. This is the only food store in town, most of the town and maybe visitors are using it. I can guarantee that I will return without quite a few things that I see as not that unusual, certain types of bread or even Organic Semi Skimmed Milk. And though sometimes they give a larger variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, often certain things are missing or they look poor(especially bananas) and are so near the date of sale, its not worth purchasing.

It must be hard to gauge how much stock to get in and try to avoid waste but it is disappointing. Especially, when today we are told how important a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables happens to be.

In some ways are just doing what they know how...able to run a successful retail business.

And having access to a service where your shopping is selected and delivered. They are always on time(early if anything)and rarely let me down on items that are unavailable.

How popular is the service? Well, this delivery service covers much of the North East Of England from their large retail site near Durham. They have a fleet of 10 vans and deliver approx 260 orders per day and come this next week they will be adding another 3 vans to their fleet(especially handy for Christmas)and with the new extension to the branch in my own town, they are to introduce van delivery from there.

Which hopefully will be better for us but also I assume it means that they can cover neighbouring locations and avoid long journeys and in poor weather conditions that has to be safer too. I just hope that being supplied from nearby does not reduce what is available as some of the goods via the delivery from Durham and that Tesco being very large there is greater choice than the local branch. I suppose if a delivery van drops off at a number of places and saves all the extra transport that would be on the road, it may also help the environment too.