Tonight’s neighbourhood forum was a bit of a shock. It was arranged at short notice to discuss the cricket ground renewal. As such, residents were invited from Great Stone Road and Talbot Road nearest to the cricket ground. Gorse Hill residents from the opposite side of Chester Road will have received no notice of the meeting and clearly weren’t aware of it. This was highly inappropriate.
Tesco’s were at this meeting (unadvertised); and disclosed for the first time the sheer scale of their ambitions for the store on Chester Road. They want a store there that is even bigger than the one at Altrincham. At 140000 sq ft, it will be huge. They have had previous applications refused here for stores sized 88,000 sq ft, but rather than come back with a reduced plan, they’ve nearly doubled its size. Clearly they feel that the cricket ground development provides an opportunity for a sympathetic hearing. The cricket club makes no secret that it needs partners financially, but other than an easy passage, it’s difficult to see what Tesco’s gain from the cricket ground.
It’s obvious that Gorse Hill needs to aware of the scale of this proposal and that this is going to be highly controversial.We welcome your comments.
First Published 14 July 2009 with 4 comments
http://gorsehill-labour.blogspot.com/2009/07/tescos-gorse-hill.html
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