Mega Tesco - the Threat Looms

The Planners of Trafford Council are minded to approve the huge Old Trafford MegaTesco (while rejecting a smaller Sainsbury at nearby White City). The application will be reviewed by the Trafford Planning Committee councillors next Thursday (11th March). This is in spite of the following facts:

- The Tesco is huge even by their standards and will sit close to sports grounds where there are already massive traffic problems on match days.

- it goes against Trafford Council's own strategy to support local shops

- even the planners admit it would have an adverse impact “on the vitality and viability of Stretford Town Centre”

As we know from the Chorlton Meadows threat, the fact that planning officers are minded to approve an application doesn't mean that a planning committeee will approve it but the omens here are not good. This makes it all the more important that people write to the Government Office of the North West, urging the Government to 'call-in' the application; see here for a sample call-in letter.

The link with the Old Trafford cricket ground improvement has clearly had an effect, but the views of local residents should have a far higher value than the sports fans miles away who have been canvassed with a biased view by the Cricket Club. Local petitions against the development have about 1000 signatures against around 340 in favour.

Green Party candidate for Chorlton, Brian Candeland (pictured discussing the matter with a local resident), said "This is a disgrace. It appears local residents have not been sent copies of the committee report despite requests and the submission from the 'No Mega Tesco' campaign group seems to have been ignored completely.

Along with other campaigners I am not against improving the Cricket Ground - indeed I attended the last Ashes test to be held there, and would like to do so again. But improvements need not, and should not, be done on the back of a project that will damage local shops for miles around. There are other cricket ground improvements taking place around the country, but none are being done on the back of this sort of development. Given the general support for a test ground in the North-West I am sure an alternative route could have been found, had the will been there."