News. . . .
August 3rd, 2009
July’s Supermarket Saga Update
This and previous supermarket news can be viewed here
by Dai Dom Da.
Older readers may remember an ITV series from the 1980’s called Brass, a couple of editions of which were recently repeated. Brass was set in a town in the North of England sometime before World War One. A mill owner called Mr Hardcastle had climbed his way up the greasy pole and come to dominate the life of the town. His workers lived in fear and admiration of him. “Mr Hardcastle is a man of genius”, said one. “During the last great slump, he put all the rents up to show how confident he was that there would be an economic recovery. What foresight!” Mr Hardcastle’s generosity to his townspeople knew no bounds. Another family had fallen ill with TB and could no longer pay the rent, so Mr Hardcastle had their roof taken off at his own expense to ensure that they got plenty of fresh air, and the whole family was very grateful until they died, shortly afterwards.
Thank goodness the pillars of our community these days set a similar example of the entrepreneurship and forward thinking we can all admire. Indeed, our own town council is a beacon in this respect, with one councillor even sending his wife out to clean the public toilets for a trifling token payment of £700 per month. What public spirit, and therefore how sad that some people in the town have seen fit to criticise this piece of public service and suggest that the contract for the cleaning should have gone to tender. Such is the ungratefulness and impudence of some of the people of this town, with some even daring to suggest that the toilets have not been properly cleaned. Thank goodness a council inspection showed this to be complete nonsense.
Newcastle Emlyn is fortunate to have as its leading light Mr Kevin Cawdor who wishes to drag us out of the dark ages of pokey little shops and small businesses and provide the town with a huge and shiny new supermarket. No longer will we have to trail around the High Street buying a few chops here, a loaf there, some fruit and veg from the market or a light bulb somewhere else. At last, everything will be conveniently located in one place.
We only hope that when the new store is up and running and the old-fashioned shops have shut up for the last time, that Kevin will snap up the derelict properties and bulldoze the lot. Then at last we will have enough car parking.
The Carmarthen Journal recently gave Kevin most of its front page to tell the world how much he cares for the town, and it was only to be regretted that the rabble which opposes the plan managed to get a few column inches on page 29 of that edition of the paper. They recently delivered a huge package of letters objecting to the supermarket to the Council, bringing the total number of objections up to around 500, although Kevin believes that many of these were signed by schoolchildren, or possibly stupid adults who should be sent back to school.
Kevin subsequently gave up some of his precious time to go on radio to say he could not understand what all the fuss was about, and he rightly contrasted his own plans with the disgraceful attempt by Lidl to build a discount store opposite CK’s, a proposal which has attracted a staggering 3 objections.
Fortunately, the Carmarthen Planning Department is doing all it can to show the residents the error of their ways. Kevin pointed out on the radio that there was nothing to stop Lidl from opening a store on the Castle Motors site and then selling it off to Tesco. Of course if this happened, we would have one of the smallest Tescos in the country with a tiny car park with no room for expansion, but you can never be too careful, and the County Council appears to agree that this possibility poses a serious threat to the magnificent Cawdor project and is therefore raising new objections after its attempts to stop the development on the grounds of road safety.
In a further demonstration of his generosity, Kevin went on to offer to negotiate with concerned traders to agree covenants to stop the supermarket from selling certain types of goods, such as chest freezers or particle accelerators. No doubt he will ensure that they have to pay handsomely to have such covenants, and it will be very amusing to see them try to take any major supermarket chain to court which breaches a covenant. Amusing, and speaking as a lawyer, very lucrative.
A new traffic survey was recently carried out at council taxpayers’ expense. We fervently hope that it will show that the Cawdor supermarket will not pose a risk to road safety or cause more congestion, as the original survey did. Let us hope that the Council rejects impudent demands from townspeople for the new report to be made public. This is surely unnecessary.
There is no doubt, as Kevin himself has made clear, that his heart is with the town, and to show us this, he has just announced that he will be closing our last petrol station at the end of this month. We all know about global warming, and so we can be truly grateful that he is abandoning his softly softly approach to reducing oil demand by charging more than any other petrol station in a 10-mile radius and finally driving home a new and uncompromising message that we have to stop driving around to save the planet. With any luck, the new supermarket will open soon so that all those little trips to Cardigan and Carmarthen will be a thing of the past.
This does not mean, of course, that we should stop buying Vauxhall cars from Kevin. There may no longer be any petrol to put in them, but we can be sure that he is selling us a long-term investment.
The Cawdor application forecasts that the new store will achieve a turnover of around £12 million per year. These figures were taken from the Council’s own planning estimates. Unfortunately, a revised report commissioned by Lidl from the same company which drew up the Council’s own estimates shows that some mistake must have been made in the original count, and that the total now available for the new supermarket is only about £5 million. Happily, however, the Council has wisely opted to refuse to make the new report public, and we hope that the shortfall in the new supermarket’s revenue will quickly be made up from the money currently spent in all those out-dated and cramped little shops in the main street.
The Council has said it will not hear the Cawdor application until September at the earliest, but we can be confident that this will not drag on for too much longer, as Kevin’s decision to close his filling station shows he must, like Mr Hardcastle, be confident that good news is coming his way very soon.
well…I find it hard to read something that doesn’t mean what it says by way of black humour…So I will say what I mean.
I was aghast thet the Carmarthen Journal gave such front page cover to only one side of a crucial conflict of agendas.
I have an emotional and gut response to the awfulness of the idea of the supermarket and would appreciate if anyone could answer a few factual questions so I can have some back up practical information?
Where would the money spent from the pockets of local people in a proposed large chain supermarket end up? Currently it goes back into the pockets of other local people and local businesses in a feel good way.. Do we want to be supporting the huge pocket of unknown multinational corporations who invest it its own global development?
And why are there over eighteen businesses/shops closed down in Carmarthen whilst the massive shopping mall is being built in the name of progress?…I just dont understand…Do we have any belief at all in growing/building/investing in our own unique local community?
Was there any mention by any person in the community consultation (around two and a half years ago) of a need for a large supermarket? I was there all day and I don’t think there was one single suggestion for this..am I correct?
Answers appreciated. Thank you
I’ve voted with my feet and have stopped taking my car to Cawdors for repairs. Only trouble if we all do this – it will give him more incentive to find a commercial return from the site. Unless of course the rare Spotted Frittillery caterpillars I’ve seen on the car park hedges means the site has to be protected from development…
Dai dom da! what kind of name is that – I won’t translate for fear of offence. Call yourself a lawyer – well give yourself a proper name and get your facts correct!
Check Machynleth town report on a similar supermarket issuse – big report in the Western Mail last week definitely worth reading!