Thursday 24 September 2009

Supermarkets

We had a petition presented at Full Council today by a Fenland Lib Dem activist. Basically, it was in support of a supermarket in Chatteris, and he used the fact that the planning committee had turned down such an application in Chatteris as part of his case.

The truth is that, whilst the planning committee did indeed turned down applications for supermarkets in both Whittlesey and Chatteris, there was a very clear message sent at the same time that supermarkets were needed, but that the detail of the applications were not acceptable.

In the case of the Chatteris situation. I suspect that a petition suggesting that a supermarket with pedestrian access over the A141was needed would not have got anywhere near as many signatures!! That was the application that was in front of the planning committee.

A new application has come forward for Whittlesey recently, and I am fairly sure that one will come forward for Chatteris too. But, a yes decision should not be made simply because it is a supermarket, we should be looking at whatever comes forward and only saying yes if the planning issues are acceptable.

1 comment:

  1. This point, Councillor Curtis, is that it was reported in the press that the Head of Planning had said that there was no demand for a supermarket in Chatteris when earlier this year such an application was refused.
    This caused outrage in Chatteris and was the number one 'door step' issue during the recent Council Council elections, and which is why so many people rushed to add their names to the petition.
    Our intention was to avoid th situation, should any further supermarket application be made, of the Planning Dept claiming again there is no need or demand for a new supermarket.
    And that's exactly what I said at Council yesterday, which you would know if you'd actually been listening.

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