Banking, tobacco and textiles - why no outcry when those jobs went?

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I was in Bingley this morning to catch a train. Nothing unusual here but it got me to thinking about steel and jobs and such. Mostly because slap bang in the middle of Bingley is the site of the former Bradford & Bingley Building Society HQ. The thousand or so jobs that went at the two B&BBS locations in Bingley are a reminder that the fallout from the financial crisis was real for many people - we're told the banks were bailed out but that probably doesn't wash much with all those folk who lost their jobs round where I live.

Indeed as I meander round my ward, I come across the evidence of past jobs - I live in a converted mill that once employed hundreds of people and was still a working mill (of sorts) up to the 1980s. The Pennine Fibres mill in Denholme is gone and is now transforming into another estate of family homes and the same goes for the woodyards, the circlips companies and the machining workshops. Thousands of jobs have gone from Bingley Rural since the 1970s - some because there isn't call for what they make, others because someone somewhere else in the world can make it cheaper and others because, like Bradford & Bingley, the folk in charge of the business crashed it into the financial wall.

I can look elsewhere in the country and see jobs destroyed by the malice of government - the cigarette plants in Nottingham, Bristol and Northern Ireland, the businesses that made cigarette vending machines in the Black Country, and the jobs making packaging in Bradford. Thousands of men and women, in the parlance over the press, thrown on the scrap heap by the actual decision of government.

So what is so special about steel. Why are we treating the closure of a couple of steel plants as some sort of existential threat, as a sort of emasculation of the nation? How come those banking jobs in Bingley, the livelihoods of women making cigarettes in Ballymena and the work of merchandisers filling up vending machines across the country - how come they don't elicit the same outcry?

Of course we're bothered about those steel jobs. It's a terrible thing to see a great industry - part of the fabric of places like Redcar and Port Talbot - struggling like this. But do people think that the building society wasn't important to the fabric of Bingley? That it's death didn't cause huge damage to the town and its surroundings? Yet Gordon Brown didn't chair emergency cabinet meetings to consider support for Bingley. No minister's foreign trip was cut short so he could be grilled about the closure and no special fund was set up to regenerate the town.

So forgive me when I'm less than ecstatic at the calls for protectionist barriers, illegal government procurement rules, state subsidy and nationalisation. Literally millions of jobs have gone from our economy over the past few decades yet we have the highest rate of employment ever. And granting special privileges to one particular industry for reasons of either sympathy or economic nationalism is both wrong and an insult to those millions of workers who lost their jobs in businesses neither the Labour Party nor the press gave a fig for.

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Leaving Bradford? Your views please

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OK, I most of you aren't from (or especially interested in) Bradford but for those who are there's a blog post at the Bingley Rural Conservatives website about whether Shipley, Bingley and Keighley should leave Bradford:

There are undoubtedly differing views about this idea – some feel that replacing rule from Bradford with rule from Keighley isn’t necessarily an improvement while others feel that the dominance of the old City over the wider District leads to misplaced priorities. Phil Davies is very concerned about planning decisions but there must be equal concern about the manner in which Bradford Labour has implemented its cuts to services.

Just recently, during the budget discussions, Labour proposed closing five children’s centres – every one in the Shipley and Keighley constituencies and every one in a ward with Conservative councillors. The same goes for spending on highways, on youth services and on regeneration – the focus is on the City and especially the City centre.

Happy to accept views from anywhere - politeness is, as always, urged on you!

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Petition to save Bingley Pool

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As you probably know Bradford Council plan to close Bingley Pool. They also plan to make the decision in private session (for reasons of "confidentiality"). We're told there will be a consultation - although I doubt this will be about the closure more likely an exercise in justifying the proposals.

Bingley Civic Trust and local campaigners have launched a petition to save the pool:

Yesterday and today volunteers were in the town’s 5Rise shopping centre collecting signatures, parents have been taking more names at school gates and copies are also available in shops and the Arts Centre, with an online version on Bingley Civic Trust’s website. 

If you're in Bingley do sign up or else visit the Civic Trust website to sign up on line - click here to do so.

Remember that, if 1000 people sign it triggers a debate at full Council - a chance to make sure every Councillor considers the issues and that the decision is made openly.

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But what about global warming?

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A team of archaeologists have unearthed evidence which suggests Bingley Moor used to be as warm as the South of France.

Really. I've been on those moors. Warm isn't the word that springs to mind!

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In which Bradford Council shows little interest in Bingley's future....

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Bingley Market has been struggling. Despite the location in the fine new square, the market has suffered from the lack of footfall in the town. And from Bradford Council's lack of interest in the market - indeed in the idea of markets as a permanent feature of a town rather than as a flashy gimmick for a festival day.

Some business folk in Bingley would like to take on the market - give it a real boost and try to make it work free from the attentions of council busybodies:

Richard Holmes, who manages the 5Rise shopping centre, design firm boss Richard Tempest and market trader Dean McNally had proposed running the setting-up of stalls and collecting of rents themselves as a means of securing the market’s future and saving the Council some £40,000 a year in costs

Great news surely? Local people keen to take control of a local facility and save the Council some brass? The Council have bitten these business folk's hands off?  Er..no:

‘Any relinquishing of the market operation would require a Council decision and would have to go out to tender rather than just handing the operation of the market to just one group’

What nonsense - the Council has no absolute requirement to put business of this sort out to tender merely to have identified particular reasons why not and to have explained how the market has been tested.

It seems the Council would prefer to see the market die a slow death rather than respond to a positive offer from local traders. Pretty typical. And rather sad.

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Should Bradford's Labour councillors stand on their (housing) principles...

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At a recent Bradford Council meeting, a dozen or so Labour councillors declared interests as landlords (for completeness three Conservative councillors and one Green did likewise). The sight of this made us grin a little - socialists as a new rentier class!

However, there's a serious point to be made here about the housing debate. Bradford's Labour councillors are adamant that we are facing a "housing crisis" in the City and that we desperately need "affordable" housing for the vast hordes of future Bradfordians. As a result Cllr Slater, the housing and planning lead is adamant that "middle-class" objectors to greenfield housing development must be slapped down:

And Councillor Val Slater conceded she and other councillors will be locking horns with “middle class” protesters as the battles rage over where to build the 45,500 homes said to be needed by 2028. 

So why then are those rent earning labour councillors not playing their part? After all Cllr Malik, chair of the corporate scrutiny committee doesn't just own one or two houses:

 At Premier Housing we have been providing quality rental properties for over 20 years. Whether you are a student or a professional we have an ever expanding portfolio of quality, studios, flats and houses, you can be certain that we will find a property that suits your needs.

You could ask why Cllr Malik doesn't stand on his socialist principles and provide some of that "affordable" housing?  Or is this what is meant by affordability:

He (Cllr Malik) is one of two directors of Premier Housing (Bradford) Ltd who, along with the company itself, were fined a total of £34,000 by the courts earlier this year.

The firm has a portfolio of rented flats in Bradford, Leeds, Halifax and Liverpool and was taken to court by Liverpool Council over 41/43 Holt Road, Liverpool, for eight offences under the Houses in Multiple Occupation legislation.

The charges described the flats above a shop as rat-infested and poorly-converted.

The company re-appeared in court for six similar offences relating to flats in Laburnum Road, Liverpool. 

Not much evidence of caring for the poor but that's not really my point here - why don't those Labour councillors rent their properties out to the poor at affordable rents rather than argue for the rest of us (who don't earn rents) to pay more taxes so as to pay the higher rates of housing benefit needed to pay those higher market rents?

And here's another idea - Cllr Slater lives in a large three or four bedroomed house in Bingley (about ten miles or so from her 'deprived' ward). Just her and her husband. Why isn't she doing something to help with this "housing crisis" she's invented by renting out those spare rooms?

But then I remembered! The thing about socialism is that it's not about people actually doing caring things to help less fortunate folk. Such activity is patronising and to be stopped - the state through taxes will provide what those folk need! And Cllr Slater can sit in her comfortable home in a pleasant market town secure in the knowledge that she has forced those pesky taxpayers to cough up for subsidising affordable housing.

Taxpayers like the one who wrote to me recently:

"My full army and OAP adds up to £14,590 of which I pay almost £1,000 tax."

These are the "middle classes" that Cllr Slater is so disparaging about. This is the lie of her ostentatious socialism - condemning decent, hard-working folk to virtual penury while lecturing us about how we don't care because we don't support higher taxes and more government.

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Bradford Council's lunatic justification for killing town centres...

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On a day when town centres will be in the news, Bradford Council announces its latest wheeze to promote town centre success. On-street car parking charges. Yes folks, the Labour Party in Bradford - wedded as they are to utter lunacy and supported by anti-car, anti-business, anti-sanity Green Party councillors - tell us that these car parking charges will:

...improve access to town centres and stimulate trade by creating a higher turnover of customers.

The current arrangements - for example on North Parade in the City Centre or on Bingley Main Street - are for short stay free parking. Now we'll have short stay with charges. How exactly will that promote a higher turnover of customers?

Let me predict what will happen. Fewer people will go to town centres to shop, choosing instead to to to places where they don't have to pay to park.

In the middle of a massive retail downturn, this perhaps takes the prize for the stupidest of stupid proposals. And it's just about raising cash anyway.

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Some good news, some secrecy and a worry about planning in Bradford

Cullingworth

On Friday, the Shipley Planning Panel refused an application to build over 400 new houses on land at Sty Lane in Micklethwaite near Bingley. Land next to the Leeds Liverpool Canal and close to the great pair of Bingley locks – five-rise and three-rise.

The audience cheered and stamped their feet as councillors voted six to one against proposals by developers Redrow and Bellway to build on the site at Sty Lane, Micklethwaite.

Councillors said they felt access to the site, which was principally via a swing bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, was not adequate.

There will be an appeal – indeed the date is already set – so those objecting to the development might yet have their hopes dashed.

My purpose in highlighting this decision isn’t simply to discuss the particular development but to make a wider observation about Bradford’s Local Development Framework (LDF) Core Strategy. See, you’ve already got drooping eyelids and a fuzzy head at the planning jargon. Like most people, this strategy will be informed more by professional lobbyists – the developers, the “environment” campaigns and the heritage advocates – than by local people considering what development is needed and how to go about providing that development.

The LDF Core Strategy won’t point directly at the precise locations for development but will decide how much housing, employment and infrastructure is needed and how land allocation can be used to make that provision. And, right now, it is being driven by hidden evidence – documents that Bradford Council has not published:

·         The Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) – this assesses the possible sites across the district and has been conducted by a panel including representatives of the housebuilders, the social housing sector and the council. No elected members are involved in this process and other than a report on process and methodology to scrutiny, there will be no member process.

·         The Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) – this analyses the housing market in Bradford in depth advising on the types of housing needed in different areas and the amount and pattern of need for affordable housing – housing provided for sale and rent at below market prices. It was commissioned from consultants in 2009 and completed a year later. The council refuses to publish this document ahead of publishing the LDF Core Strategy

When the LDF Core strategy is published, these two studies will be presented as irrefutable evidence supporting the Council’s strategy. There will be no scope for challenging these documents – we will be expected to work with them as the basis of determining the core strategy. And I can tell you what the key proposal in that strategy – based on this evidence they won’t let us see – will be.

In order to meet the need for housing – 50,000 new houses over 15 years – we will be told that we have to release land from the ‘green belt’. Land like the site at Sty Lane where permission has just been refused. There will be no scope for creativity in meeting this requirement, we will not be allowed to question the number – all we will, as councillors, be asked to do is agree to taking large tracts of land from Bradford’s ‘green belt’.

And before you all get excited about the current proposals for a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and begin laying into the government remember that what I have just described – a distant, bureaucratic, inflexible, predict-and-provide method – is the system introduced by the last Labour government.

Over the coming weeks, I will try to set out how an alternative approach might work – how we can negotiate development with local communities rather than simply point at land saying ‘build there’. How we can incorporate the changed pattern of employment and how we can create a plan that is ‘developer-friendly’ without ruining the amenity – the fantastic South Pennines amenity – that local people cherish.

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Smells like political interference...

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There was a meeting of the Shipley Constituency Area Committee - one of Bradford's Area Committees - this evening. Item 10 on the agenda for the meeting was entitled:

Review of decision on gypsy/traveller encampments

The gist of this item was that the resolution of the Committee back in December was contrary to the Council's Constitution. The relevant part of the resolution said:

"That the Chief Executive, in consultation with other Local Authority Chief Officers that he considers appropriate, be requested to press the Government to introduce more robust legislation to deal with the problematic and persistent unauthorised encampments as part of a strategy to manage the needs of travelling communities."

The City Solicitor deems that this resolution is outside the remit of the Committee as it does not have "...the authority to instruct the Chief Executive to lobby the Government to change the law as that would be a policy decision."  According to the City Solicitor the Constitution states that Area Committees can only "contribute to the formulation" of policy.

Unfortunately the City Solicitor wasn't in attendance so could neither explain nor defend her decision. However, it seems to me that the Committee's resolution did not breech the Constitution since is does not "instruct" the Chief Executive, it "requests" an action from that person.

Moreover, since the issues that led to the resolution related directly to a series of events in Bingley - within the Shipley constituency - it seems to me that the Committee was acting well within its remit to:

"Consider and address issues raised through neighbourhood forums, liaison groups, parish and town councils and other community bodies"

Much though I like the City Solicitor, it seems to me that this decision raises two serious concerns:

1. The Committee has been constrained in seeking reasonable actions to address specific issues relating to the Area it serves

2. There was a four month gap between the original resolution and today's date - this seems an excessive time for one individual to consider a given resolution that raises concern

The whole affair smells a funny colour - call me a cynic but I sense political interference.

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Bingley Show, old laws and the real reason for getting the show moved

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Not sure whether to laugh or cry about this.

"Following a request from a member of the public Bradford Council uncovered an old act of Parliament – S44 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1890 – which states that the local authority may on such days as they think fit close the park for any agricultural, horticultural show...provided that no such park or pleasure ground shall be closed on Sundays."

Another part of the act known as – S76(1) of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1907 – does give the local authority certain powers to set apart any such part of a park for the purposes of recreation and exclude public from the part set apart. Unfortunately this only applies to a part of the park and not the whole or majority of the park which is necessitated by Bingley Show."

As Bingley Show charge admission and use the whole of the park they are effectively excluding public. If Bradford Council were to continue to let Bingley show use Myrtle Park on a Sunday it would mean that the council would be operating beyond their powers. Bingley Show have thus been asked to book another day."

To start with this is the 21st Century. And Bingley Show takes place once each year – that’s right folks, just one Sunday out of the 52 available. But what I find most surprising is that “a member of the public” has gone to the bother of finding out about this dusty law and then telling the Council about it. Why? Does it really matter?

Or are they – without success – trying to stop this event from taking place?

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Friday Fungus: Dinner in a tent

We're off out to a dinner in a tent in a park in Bingley so no Friday Fungus of note. Just thought I post a photograph providing genuine evidence of my willingness to cook - if not my capability in that department.

In the meantime let me recommend The Mushroom Channel - a veritable feast of mushroomy stuff (if a little inclined to the annoying 'mushrooms as superfood' and 'mushrooms as a meat substitute' lines).

Enjoy!

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Unopposed development in the 'Green Belt' - a guide to planning idiocy

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I try very hard to be positive about the planning system. But this (starts on page 19) makes me want to weep:

A full application for construction of a new livestock building together with retention of part of a general purpose agricultural building. Land at Beckfoot House, Beckfoot Lane, Harden, Bingley.

This application is recommended for refusal despite letters of support from neighbours and there being no local objections at all. Those people who will be affected by the development think its fine – why do planners think they know better?

And what do the planners seem to think? Well it appears to me that despite the weasel words used the main driver for the decision is a belief that the applicant isn’t a proper farmer.

the main issue to consider in determining this application continues to be the impact of the building on the openness of the green belt and the character and appearance of the landscape due to its bulk and scale and its prominent siting - especially given the relatively small size of the land holding and the scale and prominence of the building.

The building is too big and therefore might be used for dreadful, nefarious purposes (in this case the rumour is that the applicant intends to keep his racing cars in the new barn – odd given he has a perfectly good garage for them). The other problem is that the planners want to dictate precisely where on the holding a barn should be cited rather than allowing the landowner to decide according to his needs.

And the planners return to their innuendo again:

The building will have to be significantly adapted to make it suitable to accommodate livestock which casts some doubt on its original intended purpose.

Of course they have no evidence to support this statement – it’s just lobbed in there to cast doubt on the applicants farming credentials despite this:

…an agricultural statement from agents representing the applicant describes the applicant’s intention to establish a pedigree beef herd and sheep flock. It says that the location of the building is justified in terms of practicality for the farming enterprise, topography and access and to avoid potential conflict with neighbouring properties. The size is said to be justified by reference to welfare standards and regulations governing the housing of livestock and by reference to the amount of feed, straw equipment and ancillary items such as medicines required by the intended number of livestock. The applicant anticipates keeping up to 8 cows, each with calves and a maximum of 20 sheep. The cows will have to be housed indoors over winter. The portion of the building that needs to be rebuilt to accommodate livestock seems to have been designed to reflect DEFRA recommendations and welfare guidance.

Despite this the planners are back with their ‘you’re not a proper farmer’ implications:

It has not been explained why a building of the proportions and in the position agreed under the Prior Approval procedure would not suffice given the small scale of the holding.

Er...did you not read the Agent's statement?

None of these issues is material to the planning decision but they provide important background noise for the planners – substantiating their argument that this barn is too big and in a prominent position. The crux of the planning argument relates to whether the development is allowed in the ‘green belt’ – and, ceteris paribus, if it has a clear agricultural justification then planning permission is not required.

What I find most disturbing about this case is the manner in which rumour and innuendo about the applicant’s purposes in building the barn appear to have influenced the decision and, in particular, the assessment of the agricultural case for the development. In the view of neighbours this development is, at worst, of no impact and for some a real advantage. But the treatment of the case by the planners – the questioning of the applicants motives, the dismissal of planting schemes and the constant reference to the scale of the farm – serve to create the context for those planners to propose refusal on the grounds of impact in the green belt.

An impact that has been mitigated:

The impact of the building when viewed from Beckfoot Lane has been heightened by removal of mature trees from along the lane during 2008. These have been replaced by new planting carried out in conjunction with the Forest of Bradford. A previous letter from the Trust confirms that 350 whips and 45 light standard trees have been planted on the applicant’s land as an initial phase of a planting programme which will continue with new tree planting and new hedgerows to be planted on the holding in November 2009. The applicant intends to plant at least 3 acres of the holding as woodland copses.

Pretty good stuff – just what the planning system should support? But in this case the planner isn’t happy:

…it would be some years before such planting provided effective screening to a structure that is 31 metres long and over 7 metres high for 2/3rds of its length.

But - as this statement suggests - it will screen the development in years to come.

But it gets better - the planners even go so far as to criticise the tree planting itself!

…the new planting proposed may, in itself, detract from the open pasture character of the landscape.

I’m laughing now – anyone who know the ‘twines’ and the Harden Beck valley will know it is a mixture of woodland, copse and fenced grazing – there isn;t any ‘open pasture’. The statement appears designed to substantiate the view of the planners rather than to describe the valley in which this development is proposed.

It is likely that a proposed development that improves life for local residents, provides facilities for a local farmer, is supported by several letters and by ward members will be refused.

The planning system really is a joke.

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Try talking about a three-day week to the small business owner!

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I have been pondering how I might comment on “21 hours”, the latest piece of “research” from New Economics Foundation – who are to economics what homeopathy is to medicine.

This evening as I walked through Bingley, the real truth came to me. I walked – at about 6.15pm – past Ophiuchus. Run by Donna and Oliver, this is a hairdresser. And it was open. I wondered what this couple would think about:

“A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”

I suspect the answer would be somewhat a somewhat bemused shrug. After all let’s look at Donna & Oliver’s work:

*The shop is open six days every week – seven days during busy times such as approaching Christmas or before the school summer holidays

*Most days someone – usually either Donna or Oliver – is working from 8.30 in the morning through to 6.30pm or even later if there are still customers

*When the last customer’s hair is finished there’s the shop to clean, tidy and lock up – another half hour each day

*And then there’s stock to order, books to keep, tax and VAT forms to fill, staff to manage and tradesmen to arrange

Assuming it’s a normal week, Donna and Oliver probably clock up 100 hours working. And it’s stressful – margins are tight, business is tough and there’s plenty of competition. And on top of this Donna and Oliver have two kids – who have all the demands and needs you’d expect of young children.

Talking about “21 Hours” is an insult to these hard-working, decent, caring people who happen to have made the life choice of running a small business. The “21 Hours” idea is the product of people who have no clue why people work, what business is about or how the normal life of normal people operates.

We’d all like the “good life”. But some – like Donna & Oliver know it only comes from hard work, effort and good service. So New Economics Foundation, you know where you can stick your “21 Hours”?

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How supermarkets are snide

On Tuesday I posted a practical piece on the proposed new Tesco just outside Bingley. I thought however that something more thoughtful on the subject was needed – mostly to explain how we got to the stage we have with supermarkets and similar mass retailing.

Supermarkets are a child of the swag man – “pile it high and sell it cheap” was the motto of Manny Cohen, Tesco’s founder. And that’s just what he did – self-service, limited in-store service and sharp buying. The fundamentals remain the same – supermarkets succeed because people believe they are cheaper and, much of the time, in most places this is true. Nothing snide about that at all.

What is snide** is when supermarkets lay claim to sharper prices just on the basis of price comparison with other supermarkets. When did ASDA or Morrisons last compare their greengrocery prices to the prices on a market stall and brag about their cheapness in an advert? That’s because the market greengrocer is almost certainly cheaper. And in many cases the same goes for butchers on the market and much else besides. The price promise is a promise to be cheaper than other supermarkets – not discounters, not markets stalls, not van sales – just other big supermarkets.

So you’re warned about price now. What about the impact of supermarkets? The claim these big firms make is that they will create hundreds of jobs – and taken at one level this is true. A large supermarket will employ up to 400 people (rather fewer in “full time equivalents”) and most a quite well-regarded as employers. But what the supermarket doesn’t tell you is the known effects they have on small shops selling convenience goods, markets and, increasingly comparison retailers, pharmacies, newsagents and stationers.

The New Economics Foundation conducted a large study of food markets in London that included price comparisons for a basket of fresh produce between the market and the supermarket:

“The street market prices for fruit and vegetables are significantly cheaper than supermarket prices...”

Supermarkets spend a great deal on telling us about price and about their fresh produce. What they never tell you is that the cheap stuff isn’t the “fresh” stuff. Even farmers’ markets – widely perceived as expensive – were competitive in terms of prices for fresh produce compared to supermarkets.

Supermarkets also destroy towns and destroy jobs – here’s what I wrote in my MSc dissertation on the subject:

“The main findings of the early reviews (BDP Planning et al, 1992, DETR, 1998) showed that out-of-town and edge-of-town retail development did negatively impact on the vitality and viability of town centres: 1) development reduced the levels of town centre convenience shopping by at least 20%; 2) the loss of convenience trade affects the comparison trade within the town centre; 3) that, in most cases, the net employment impact of superstores was negative (DETR, 1998)” *

Yet the Government then and the Government now continue to promote supermarkets – taken in by the snide nature of their marketing, the misinformation and the manipulation of consumer opinion. Opposing supermarket developments isn’t about some sort of cuddly green agenda – it’s about stopping the wholesale destruction of other business through the exercise of effective monopoly power.

*References:
BDP Planning & Oxford Institute of Retail Management (1992), The effects of major out of town retail development: a literature review for the Department of the Environment, London, HMSO
Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) (1998), The impact of large foodstores on market towns and district centres, London, The Stationery Office

**Snide is market trader slang for misleading, fake or deceptive

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Want to keep Bingley as a market town? Object to Tesco's

Tesco have submitted a planning application for a 40,000 sq ft supermarket on the site of the former Bingley Auction Market (for those less familiar with the town this is where they hold car boot sales and clog up the town on a Sunday). This is the fourth such application for the site with all the previous applications being refused. The link above will take you to the planning web site and you might want to have a go at submitting a comment through to route (be prepared for a tough time!)

So what’s the problem? What should you say?

1. The Auction Market site is designated in the adopted plan as employment land and this designation was supported by the Strategy & Action Plan for Airedale – a retail development is a departure from the rUDP (replacement Unitary Development Plan) and contrary to Bradford Council’s agreed regeneration strategy and priority

2. This is an out-of-centre development (A location outside a town centre boundary but within defined development limits). It is likely that there will be an argument to position the development as “edge-of-centre” but guidance suggests that this applies only to locations with about 200m of the town centre

3. As an out of centre development the proposed supermarket is contrary to the provisions in Planning Policy Statement 6 (PPS6) Town Centres – the key considerations are a) need for the development (section 3.8-3.11 of PPS6); b) scale of the development (section 3.12); c) the sequential test (section 3.13 – 3.19)

4. A significant element of the PPS6 assessment is the impact of the development and the extent to which the development will compromise the economic life of the town. Tesco will argue that they are creating 350 jobs but all the substantive, independent research shows that supermarket developments destroy as many jobs as they create. A supermarket development will draw business away from the town centre – especially convenience shopping such as food, pharmacy and household goods. All of these goods are currently available within the town centre itself from small traders and from a supermarket (the Co-op)

5. The Airedale Masterplan identifies the auction market and adjacent Coolgardie sites as central to the delivery of a good quality, creative and technological employment park – delivery of these high skilled jobs would be compromised by a supermarket development on the site

6. The policy framework for retail and leisure on Bradford is found in section 7 of the replacement UDP – crucially this proposal is contrary to Policies CR2, CR3, CR5 and CR7

You may wish also to raise issues of highway safety, congestion, impact on Bingley Grammar School, flooding and drainage. But remember that, unlike the policy principles above these matters can be dealt with through the planning process and have (in the main) engineering solutions.

Who should you write to?

Local Councillors:

Bingley: David Heseltine, John Pennington, Robin Owens (John & Robin are both members of the Shipley Planning Panel with Robin being Chairman)
Bingley Rural: Simon Cooke, Margaret Eaton, Mike Ellis (Mike chairs the Regulatory & Appeals Committee)

You can also write to the planning service directly quoting the application number (Application No 09/04421/FUL) - contact details are here

My advice is to write directly to the planning service or to the Director of Regeneration at Jacobs Well, Bradford, BD1 5RW (planning.bradford@bradford.gov.uk) with a copy to your councillors requesting they make sure the objection or concern is lodged. The period for objections appears to have ended but I see no reason to stop sending in objections.

Hooligans - it's not football they follow it's violence

A couple of weeks back this bar - the Foundry Hill in Bingley - had its windows smashed in, stock destroyed or stolen and customers threatened and intimidated. By men who claimed to be supporters of Bradford City - a "firm" known as Ointment. I am sure that up and down the country people can tell of similar tales - whether it is of the Brighton Headhunters, Palace's Dirty 30 or the Service Crew from Leeds. For all the adoption of a particular badge, these men are more lovers of violence than lovers of football.

Yesterday evening saw the seemingly inevitable violence break out at the game between West Ham and Millwall - long-standing rivals in London. Others like The West Ham Process and Darren Lewis in the Daily Mirror described the experience first hand and it did not sound pleasant or enjoyable - emotions we should be able to associate with a sporting occasion.

Some - like our sports minister - have responded with the obvious knee-jerk condemnation accompanied by calls for books to be thrown and stones not to be left unturned. I find this unhelpful since it heaps too much of the blame on the police, the stewards, the club and the ordinary fan. These reactions, however much they might be understandable, do not get to the heart of the matters, do not ask why such violence takes place and simply fuel the calls for more draconian restrictions on football - and by extension other sports as well.

Other observers - before and after the game - seem more wise, more thoughtful and should be paid more attention. Peter Preston in the Guardian reacts as a long-standing Millwall fan by saying it's not the game but the people. And before the game West Ham fan and regeneration writer, Julian Dobson asked what it is that creates divisions and prejudice - in society generally as much as in football.

And these writers appreciate that this hooliganism, this violence, reflects our wider society and culture - football is victim not a perpetrator. The solution - if there is one - lies within the minds of those who join these "firms" of hooligans. And with a society that is at best equivocal towards violence and at worst rewards it with license.