10:47am Monday 18th September 2006
THE plan for a supermarket to replace the town hall and bus station in Feethams, Darlington, is a perfect example of a council prepared to create another soulless "generic" town centre full of national retail chain stores and devoid of any local identity.
Look around the town centre and count how many independently owned and operated retailers there are left.
The only unique selling proposition Darlington town centre has to entice shoppers from other towns in the North-East is the Covered Market, the Market Square and the independent retailers around the town that give it character. Tesco will quickly destroy the marketplace traders and many independent businesses.
Tesco will only ever attract customers to Tesco and not to any other retailer or market trader in town. Why would Tesco want to attract shoppers to other traders when its strategy is to become the largest food and non-food retailer in the UK?
Why can't the council support local businesses run by local people?
My company has for 35 years provided a service to its customers over and above any of our national competitors. We employ local people, reinvest a significant amount of our profits back into our business and the local economy while attempting to compete in an economy over-populated by large multiples that remove the wealth from Darlington to profit financial institutions in the City.
I hope the council will listen to its electorate and see beyond the short term benefit of a plush new office and instead recognise the damage this decision will have on the long term future and identity of our town centre. - P Cheffings, managing director, Homecare Heating Supplies, Darlington.
THE size and bulk of the proposed development is entirely out of keeping for Darlington town centre.
The council states that it wishes the town centre to have its own unique character and atmosphere. This development will totally destroy any such ambitions - it will turn Darlington into just another dull and ordinary town centre.
It will be the end of the small independent food stores, general stores and florist shops, clothing retailers and book shops. All of these categories will be available under one roof in the Tesco superstore.
Goodbye to the diversity of shops that attracted me to Darlington when I moved here 18 years ago.
If the council has to re-develop these sites, as it obviously must the bus station and Beaumont Street car parks, use imagination and encourage applications for diverse developments - individual buildings which will break up the sites and not a great mass which will dominate the skyline from the ring road and the market place and our beautiful St. Cuthbert's Church.
Let the public of Darlington see what Asda's alternative is for this site. The council should show that it can be democratic and not autocratic. - Olive Mann, Darlington.
IT IS evident from Hear All Sides that only a tiny minority see any merit in the Tesco proposals.
Why is it that council officers are answering the questions raised by the public? This clearly indicates that the ruling Labour Group councillors have failed in their responsibilities, as elected representatives, to respond to voters' concerns. - Tom H Peacock, Darlington.
IT SEEMS a shame to knock decent buildings down like the town hall and The White Horse while people have to look at building like the Rolling Mills, which is a disgrace to the town.
Do so many people want to live in flats that are getting built all over the place? They will not even be cheap for first time buyers. - N Tate, Darlington.
WE HAVE enough supermarkets already. Please, instead give us a pleasantly surrounded bus station in the town centre with clean new toilets and coffee shop with seating inside and out for visitors to admire the floral decorations for which the town is noted. A covered area for the farmers' and foreign markets would be good too!
Pay as you go parking for market users with the first hour free would be an incentive. Nearby bus stops should be an obvious necessity for the elderly. - J Snaith, High Coniscliffe.
CARLOW, a town in the Irish midlands where I lived until a year ago, is about the size of Darlington. Three years ago a new shopping centre opened with Tesco as the anchor store. Curiously enough Carlow town council, like Darlington, spent almost a year and thousands of euros pedestrianising the centre of the town around that time.
Within 18 months, most of the small businesses, which had operated in the town for decades and were on the main newly-pedestrian thoroughfare, closed down. The town centre became a dead zone. The damage is now practically irreversible.
I am not anti-Tesco nor anti-change. But change has to be for the better. As a foreigner, I was attracted to the market in the town square. I would hate to see such an institution, which is very much part of Darlington, destroyed. - Francis Stowe, Hurworth.
I AGREE with M Timmins (HAS, Sept 14). Tesco is a great idea and will rid the town of that slum bus depot and the drab old town hall. It will give people more choice. They don't have to go to Tesco. We never heard this much whinging when Safeway (now Sainsbury's) came. Why do the people of this town need to be dragged into the 21st Century? Our fathers fought wars for all of us to have freedom of choice so get real, belt up, move forward.
I still shop at Aldi even though Lidl opened next door. I buy the same things at Aldi I always have but I now get extra things from Lidl. It is great.
Let's shout up for Tesco and be heard. Too much space is given to the drudge brigade and the no camp. - D Swan, Darlington.
NOT all those who oppose the Tesco plans are "whining OAP's" as M Timmins suggests (HAS, Sept 14). Senior citizens have the same right to express an opinion as anybody and to dismiss the as whingers is an insult and, in today's world, ageist discrimination.
M Timmins assertion about pedestrianisation is not supported by the facts unless, of course, he, like the council counts those who didn't oppose the scheme as supporters. Many members of the public have grown tired of saying what they think only for it to be ignored by the council and/or the Government.
I agree that we have a "dilapidated town centre", which has been brought about by our "visionary council", to use M Timmin's own words, who have failed to carry out their duties as the highway authority.
South Park is another example where the council let it fall into rack and ruin and at one time refused to spend a penny on South Park for fear of losing the Lottery Grant. It will only be a matter of time before the Pedestrian Heart scheme looks as tatty as High Row did. Even today, the pavement outside Binns is like a patchwork quilt.
Finally, Blackwellgate and High Row will be even more restricted to pedestrians (and cyclists) since vehicles cannot get there without breaking the law. - John W Antill, Darlington.
NO and No to a Tesco in the heart of Darlington. Darlington is not a big city so Tesco would surely overwhelm us, market and all. If the town hall is crumbling - which it should not be after 35 years - bring back the contractors or whoever took over their liabilities and have them make good. It only needs good facade.
What is badly needed is a bus station. - N Weatherall, Darlington.
EVERYONE is writing about the need for a new bus station so I asked at one of information events at St Bede's School why we couldn't have a new one. Council officials said that the bus companies do not want a bus station where people queue for out of town buses (as of old). They prefer to drop and pick up in the town where it is more convenient for people.
The same council officials also said that if the majority object, the next stage of the planning process will not go ahead. So please do not be complacent and register your objections immediately.
We must stop this Tesco proposal for the sake of the future of our town. - C Taylor, Darlington.
DARLINGTON council has no idea. It's like a yob that won't listen and continues to vandalise the town, taking its history, character and tradition away.
Are they hell bent on killing it off and making it look cheap?
They wouldn't listen to the townspeople who wanted to save High Row from destruction. It's all being broken. - E Tunstall, Darlington.
PLEASE stop the Tesco development. Let the councillors live with their town hall and its sculpture as a monument to their past follies.
Tesco will be detrimental to all the other traders. Sainbury's will close along with its convenient short stay parking.
Darlington badly needs an environmentally-friendly bus station and a vision for the town's future transport needs. We need a central site with good access onto the inner ring road.
Of course that site already exists: the old bus station. Redeveloping that would eliminate the chaos that has now been caused by trying to run buses through a pedestrian area.
The proposed park and ride must be a forward step for our town's development. - P Vart, Darlington.
THE council has been reactive rather than pro-active in the matter of Feethams re-development. The proper approach now is to call off unrequited bids and invite proposals, reflecting all the varied views of townspeople, from any interested companies.
I have my own thoughts. Does the town hall need to be located in this valuable central area? We do not pay council tax there and phone inquiries rather than visits are normal.
The town hall could be rebuilt on a brownfield site anywhere in the borough. There are century-old streets in the North Road end of town which ought to be cleared where a new town hall would lift the environment.
A bus terminus accessed via the ring road, facing the Feethams roundabout, similar to Newcastle Haymarket adjacent to M&S, would be useful central asset freeing up congested East Street and Priestgate. A supermarket with its back to parish church could be separated by leafy resting place with a few benches.
By definition a market is sustained by buyers and sellers, not by public policy. If all your correspondents concerned about the viability of small traders actually use them they will have problems. - E Shuttleworth, Darlington.
I VEHEMENTLY object to Tesco taking over a quarter of our town centre. We do not need another supermarket, and the building of such a massive vacuous building will suck the life out of the town centre and the indoor and outdoor markets.
As a member of Darlington Arts Society, we cannot even exhibit without the kindness of the church, as we have been robbed of an art gallery.
We are supposed to be encouraging mobility and pedestrianisation. Tesco is offering a great lump of a building with a car park on its roof. All we need now is moving walkways and we can waddle down to Tesco 24/7.
What we really want are ideas that encourage and support a more sociable and active community.
There was once word of a ten pin bowling rink, or what about a new art gallery, or cafes, terraces and sculptures, something that defines Darlington as different.
We need to be aware of all the options before we, as a community, decide. - P Robson, Darlington
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk