Call to reject Tesco store application

THE chairman of a residents group has called for plans for a new Tesco superstore in Coleraine to be rejected.

In a letter to the Times, David Buchanan, MBE, chair of the Sandelford 2 Management Co. (N0 2.) Ltd, claims that if the application is passed by Planners it will affect retail in Coleraine town centre

It is five years this November since the attractive riverside house Cronbanagh was demolished, and Tesco submitted their first application for a replacement roughly four times the size of their present Coleraine supermarket.

In those intervening five years Tesco’s have so far submitted no less than five different applications for this development.

Mr Buchanan writes: “In their first over-ambitious application of November 2005, Tesco’s own traffic consultants, employed by them, after lengthy and detailed surveys of Coleraine traffic had reported that Coleraine could absorb the increased traffic created by Tesco without excessive congestion; Roads Service of the Department of the Environment, however, disagreed, and Tesco’s were forced to submit, on 9 July 2008, a second, more modest, application for a replacement store, this time roughly only three times the size of the present one, and besides create a third traffic lane on the Bann Bridge.

“This second plan was approved in May 2009, after all the seven or eight parties, Planning, Roads Service, Environmental Health Department of Coleraine Borough Council, neighbour resident groups, etc., had after long disussions agreed and withdrawn their objections, in our case subject to all that was agreed being implemented.

“Within four months Tesco was back with a third application, this time to remove Conditions 2 ,3 , 4 and 5 from the approval (these mostly limited the size of the development). In any other walk of life, after all these years’ negotiations and eventual agreement, the applicant would be told “get lost”; but Planning is different.

“Then on 9 February this year we were informed that Tesco’s had submitted another fourth application, for the complete removal of conditions 2 and 5 and the re-wording of Conditions 3 and 4.

“This was submitted from the Planning Service to Coleraine Borough Council on February 9 with a recommendation to refuse.

“However, Tesco, knowing of this impending refusal, submitted a fifth application on the same day, withdrawing their request for the removal of Conditions 2 and 5, but maintaining their application for the re-wording of Conditions 3 and 4.

Councillors at their February meeting, opposed this proposal, many stating that the long-fought agreement of May 9 should stand.

“Tesco, in ceasing to seek the removal of conditions 2 and 5, are not retreating, not at all; they are now maintaining that their “town centre” location already governs any restriction on the size of their planned store.

“We disagree; we understand that Tesco’s site is “on the periphery of the town centre” and “outside Coleraine’s primary retail core”. I merely quote from Planning Service documents on the matter.”

Mr Buchanan added: “We feel that this fifth application, if granted, would hasten the day when shoppers would park in Tesco, load up with a widening variety of products, and go home without going near the primary retail core of Coleraine.

“This application should be refused , and the approval of May 2009, agreed by everybody, implemented.”