News Round-up
3rd August 2009 – 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.
12th July 2009 by y Dai Dom Da.
Supermarket Sweep
There are still two separate applications – one for a Lidl discount store on the site occupied by Castle Motors opposite CK’s, and the second for a new supermarket almost three times the size of the CK’s store on the site currently occupied by Cawdor Cars and the public car park behind it.
Lidl – bats and speeding motorists
The Lidl application is progressing slowly, with the Council seeming to want to make the applicants jump through more and more hoops. The bat survey showed that there is no resident colony of bats, but a traffic survey concluded that the average traffic speed past the site is 33mph, even though it is a 30mph zone. This means that Lidl will need 90 metres of clear vision either side for vehicles exiting the site. If the traffic speed were 30mph or less, Lidl would need 70 metres clear vision. The result is a setback for the applicants, and the council has now insisted on a traffic queuing analysis.
According to one local councillor, the Lidl application has attracted only 3 objections.
Cawdor
Gridlock, what gridlock?
If the traffic lights are stuck on red for Lidl, they seem to be permanently on green for the Cawdor application. A survey was conducted during the very cold snap in early January when there was little traffic on the roads, so not surprisingly the conclusion was that the increase in traffic caused by the new supermarket there would not be a problem. A second more recent survey concluded that articulated lorries would be able to sweep in and out of the Cawdor site without a problem. So no problem here at all then, except of course that Newcastle Emlyn is already often gridlocked and can’t take any more traffic.
Interestingly, however, temporary cameras have made an appearance opposite the Cawdor Garage and in the car park in the last few days, and we are trying to find out if a new survey is being carried out.
Cawdor announced some weeks back that they would be amending their plans to resite the supermarket parallel to the houses in Tanyard Lane. The latest unconfirmed news is that the Council has said it would not accept this, as the supermarket would be too close to the existing houses.
Mystery supermarket that dare not speak its name
It is still not known which, if any, supermarket chain is interested in the Cawdor site, with the applicants describing this as a speculative application.
Strong local opposition
Unlike the Lidl application, there is massive opposition in both the town and the surrounding area to this plan. Over 50 objections have so have been received by the Council, and the Newcastle Emlyn Action Group has collected over 300 more, as well as a petition.
The Cawdor application covers a large area, including the forecourt, the showroom, the workshops and parking lots behind, the empty retail premises vacated by GC Factors, a bungalow and, not least, the public car park.
Car Park Monopoly – Pass GO and collect loadsamoney!
The car park was sold by Cawdor to the Council, but it is believed that Cawdor imposed a number of restrictions on the Council, including a buy-back clause. The Newcastle Emlyn Action Group is trying to find out more about this agreement to establish whether it represents value to council tax payers.
Secret Squirrel
Unlike the Lidl application, the Cawdor plan is shrouded in secrecy:
- There was no public consultation, despite the fact that this would be the biggest development in the centre of town in living memory.
- The identity of the supermarket which might take over the site is unknown.
- Almost half of the area covered by the application is covered by a secret agreement between the Council and Cawdor.
Otters threatened
The Countryside Council for Wales has voiced concerns about this development, partly because it is so close to the river. The fate of the Teifi’s otters is believed to be of particular concern.
What local people are doing to try to save their town
The Newcastle Emlyn Action Group is spear-heading opposition to the Cawdor plan. It recently held a very successful Day of Action in town to raise awareness and collect letters of objection and signatures for a petition. Many of the town’s stores are continuing to collect letters, and these will all be sent to the Planning Department. In addition, more stalls are planned to collect letters over the next few weeks.
In addition, the Group is encouraging people to write to individual members of the Planning Committee. There are 21 members of the committee, and details are to be found on this website.
The Group has also been advised to write to the Welsh Assembly Minister for the Environment and Housing, Jane Davidson AM, to voice concerns about the application.
The Group has also held meetings with one local councillor so far, representatives of Plaid Cymru and the MP Adam Price. All gave their backing to the Group and have offered their assistance.
Other supermarket news
You would think that for a market town with a population of only just over 900, that would be it, but you would be wrong!
There were also rumours that Somerfield, which is now part of Co-op, would be moving to a new site in New Road opposite Ysgol y Ddwylan. It now seems that these rumours were possibly started as a smoke-screen for the Cawdor application, and Co-op has denied that it is moving. Instead, it plans to re-vamp the existing store.
Finally, CK’s is expected to receive the go-ahead for a new store in Llandysul in the near future. The Llandysul store would be around three times the size of the Newcastle Emlyn outlet.
This could have significant consequences for the Cawdor plan, as Carmarthenshire County Council’s UDP (Unitary Development Plan) contains a framework for retail sales in each area. CK’s is projecting a turnover of around £4 million for Llandysul, and this should sharply reduce the amount of potential turnover for the Cawdor supermarket.
When is a supermarket not a supermarket?
Answer: when it’s a Cawdor application. CK’s in Newcastle Emlyn proudly claims it is a “superstore” on its signs. Cawdor apparently thinks that supermarket is a dirty word and describes its planned development (remember very nearly three times the size of CK’s) as a convenience store.
So we have a minnow that thinks it’s a whale, and a whale which claims it’s really just a minnow.
What can you do?
If you’ve made it this far, well done! If you haven’t written to the Planning Department, please sign one of the letters available in most of the shops in town or write your own. If you can, please also write to as many of the members of the Planning Committee as possible. And while you’re at it, why not tell Jane Davidson about your concerns?
The application is not expected to come before the Planning Committee until August at the earliest, so this is still time to make your views heard and to try to stop our main street from being boarded up or handed over to the charity shops.