Will Tesco open on Stokes Croft?
No. Tesco does not have the planning permission it needs to open the 39th Tesco store in Bristol. (39th? O yes. Please see Tesco’s own store locator).
Here’s how:
Following the planning meeting on the 22 September, Tesco has to modify its shop front before Bristol City Council planning committee will give permission for it.
More significantly, the council did not approve Tesco’s application for “external works and installation of plant and machinery”.
The planning committee asked instead for a noise assessment.
Currently the plant Tesco would need to use to run the store would be far too noisy.
You may well ask why this was not done beforehand.
Our own campaigners managed to get an acoustic report done, included in its 37-page report (which by the way the planners advised the councillors not to read in depth as the planners insisted that all our points – including about noise and traffic – are “not material considerations” and thus irrelevant. Whaaaat?! I think we will find out in due course the planners got it very, very wrong. )
This comment from someone called Ruth at Bristol 247.com sums it up well:
“The planners gave very strict criteria for extra noise when they approved change of use for the site, and the plant Tesco want to install can’t meet it. It was concerns about this that caused councillors to delay the vote on this application. If the council doesn’t want to sign off on a breach of the condition it itself imposed less than a year ago (which would be an interesting thing to do from a legal standpoint, as some officials seem to be aware), the council can’t approve the application.”
What I would like to know: are increases of traffic also included as criteria for change-of-use?
Like all multi-nationals, Tesco exploits regulations.
O! The wrongness of Tesco using a third party to apply for change-of-use, which hoodwinked the planning people into thinking they were giving permission for an ordinary shop.
From a traffic point-of-view there is a huge difference: an ordinary shop has to store its stock on-site, while Tesco delivers stock when needed.
Tesco’s six-a-day delivery lorries will create traffic problems on the Cheltenham Road, as Claire Milne points out.
But it is not just the food deliveries I object to: it is the Tesco marketing that promises cheapness that does not deliver and damages local communities instead.
Stokes Croft is an exciting up-and-coming area developing from the grass-roots up. People come from outside Bristol and different countries to admire its uniqueness. And this is just the beginning.
Stokes Croft is an asset to Bristol.
Let’s keep it that way.
Real Food Lover 