A member's response to the St Austell Town Framework Plan Draft Document

The Town Framework Plan for St. Austell 

This is not an official reponse from the Chamber on the draft Town Framework Plan, however as the opinion of one of our members who has been through it in great detail, it may be of interest to other members and help with forming questions on this document during the consultation period. 

Vision - Do you agree with the vision for St Austell in the Framework?”

The ‘Vision’: “In 2030 St Austell will be an inspiring town that reflects its historic past but has adapted and embraced the future. It will have a diverse thriving economy based upon a wide range of industries and lives up to its label of ‘Green Heart of Cornwall’.” 

This is a completely meaningless statement, because nowhere in the document does it tell us how St. Austell is going to have this diverse thriving economy (and where the label ‘Green Heart of Cornwall’ has come from, I cannot imagine). The document indicates that virtually every patch of green in the town has plans to be built on.

 

Another quote: “New developments will be required to make a contribution to open space provision.” When they are building on greenfield sites, how is that contributing to open space provision? “There is an identified shortage of open space/ facilities for teenagers across the town.” No mention has been made of a solution to this problem, nor any mention of improved leisure facilities to cater for the proposed increase in population.

There is to be a “walking and cycling feasibility study”.  38% of the town’s population is over the age of 50, 37% of the adults are classed as obese, 9% are receiving incapacity benefit or severe disablement allowance. The town centre is built on the side of a hill. A park and ride feasibility study would be of more use.

 

My overriding impression of the Town Framework Plan is that it is a hastily conceived, ill thought-out plan, which does nothing to address the problems that the town is experiencing even currently, let alone what they are likely to be in 2030.  The experience and rationale of those who conceived the plan should be brought into question and they should be asked why:

•             The town centre is shown as covering three differing areas in the illustrations on pages 4, 15 & 28. Surely there can be only one defined business area and that has to be the one that has been accepted by BID?

•             The image on the front cover is of a shop that closed down two years ago?

•             These two statements appear in the same document:

  1. St Austell sits in the centre of Cornwall and is the largest town in Cornwall in terms of population”. 
  2. The current population estimate for St Austell Town is 34,700 and it is the second largest area in terms of population in Cornwall”?

 

Economic - Do you agree with the proposed economic strategy for St Austell?”

 

Two statements are made within one page of each other, which probably sum up what I think about the proposed economic strategy:

  1. After reviewing all of the apparent options larger industrial or storage and distribution uses should seek to locate in more industrial areas of the town such as Holmbush.”                                                               
  2. Existing employment areas including the Holmbush area and St Austell Enterprise Park are at capacity with no potential for further expansion.”

 

SAE1 is described on the map as an ‘existing employment site’, but the last time I looked at it, there were a lot of green fields there. A large proportion of this land has already had planning permission granted for a Morrison’s supermarket.

SAE 2 & 3 are both good sites for future office space ‘if they become available’.

 

As far as other potential sites that are suitable for future employment use, there is only one – Coyte Farm. With plans already in place and national retailers already signed up, why is this area not at the forefront of the ‘vision’?

 

Retail - Which of the proposed retail strategy options for St Austell do you think should be prioritised?

 

Taking into account the word ‘prioritised’, the simple answer is that none of the three options offered give the town any hope for the future, without adding Coyte Farm into the equation.

SAR1:  The town centre cannot either improve or survive without an influx of major retailers stopping the drain of cash to neighbouring towns and cities. There is simply not the space in the town centre to accommodate any large store, neither has any store expressed interest in that location.                                                              

SAR2:  The Sedgemoor offices have already been mentioned under SAE2. They are far more suitable for office use, as, if a large retailer were to occupy the site, there would be no parking spaces available in the immediate location, thereby making it unsuitable for a large percentage of the population (see above), which, in turn, would mean that no large retailer would want to occupy the site in the first place.                                    

SAR3: (This same site is also proposed as housing under SAUE1.)  I do not support its use as a potential retail area, as it is just not large enough to serve the retail needs of the town until 2030, no retailer has expressed an interest in it and, most crucially, the site is currently occupied in part by the Council offices and no mention has yet to be made that this situation will not continue.

 

Alternatively, are there any other sites that you believe would be more suitable for retail use, if so, please state, plus briefly indicate the reasons why?”

 

Coyte Farm.

 

There is only one site in this town that can:

•             Bring to the population the type of shopping experience that they are currently travelling to find elsewhere, therefore reducing the carbon footprint (Green Heart of Cornwall?)

•             Provide several hundred job opportunities to the 13% of the adult population currently receiving unemployment benefit.

•             Prevent a large number of people having to commute to nearby towns and cities to find employment.

•             Provide a retail destination to the tens of thousands of visitors to the area, attracted by the Eden Project, Heligan, Mevagissey etc. who currently miss out the town centre completely.

•             Most importantly, provide increased footfall to the town centre, by a) encouraging the residents of St. Austell to shop in their own town, b) attracting shoppers from other towns in Cornwall and c) providing a shuttle bus to ferry shoppers to the town centre.

 

The fact that Coyte Farm has not even been mentioned in this document is nothing short of scandalous. Two proposed housing sites that were refused planning permission have both been included, yet the only project that will be able to ensure the future of St. Austell has been studiously ignored, even though the deadline for its planning appeal is not until July. Whatever may be built on the site SAR3 / SAUE1, this will not provide the wherewithal to safeguard the future of the town and, furthermore, once built, will have removed any doubts over the sequential test, when applied to Coyte Farm. The fact that a developer is ready to invest £110m and the fact that several major retailers have already signed up to open stores there and yet there are elected members of both the town and county councils who are opposed to the plan, leads me to think that the omission of Coyte Farm from this document was more than just a coincidence. How can you propose a plan, SAR3, when there is no indication that the land is available for use, and does not have retail use applied, and yet ignore a ready-made plan that, when built, will safeguard the future of this town until well after 2030.

 

As a retired retail expert, I would like to make the following observations concerning the retail statistics shown in the plan:     

 

Page 12 of the draft St. Austell Town Framework Plan 2014 states: "Since 2010 approx 6,500 sqm net of new convenience floorspace has been built or given planning permission (including a new Morrison’s Store), which therefore suggests that there isn’t a need for further convenience floor space particularly in the short to medium term. Approx 2,071 sqm net of new comparison floor space has been given planning permission since 2010. "

 

My investigations show the following:

 

Convenience shopping

Since 2010, the only new convenience outlets to have been built in St. Austell are Tesco Express in Tregonissey Road and Niles Bakery in Holmbush. The maximum size that Tesco Express could be, to comply with Sunday trading laws, is 270 sqm.  Part of this would be for comparison shopping, newspapers, magazines etc, therefore we can reasonably estimate the convenience shopping area to not exceed 250 sqm.  The addition of Niles bakery would be directly cancelled out by the closure of Warrens bakery in Fore street and The Italian Job pizza take-away in Mount Charles.  Therefore, the sum total of new convenience shopping already built in St. Austell is a maximum of 250 sqm.

Over the same period, the only planning permission granted for convenience shopping in St. Austell is for the proposed Morrison’s supermarket in Pentewan Road and for the re-development of Tesco in Holmbush. The convenience shopping area of Morrison’s is planned to be 2135 sqm.  The re-developed Tesco store will increase in size from 2692 to 5921 sqm, but, as most of this increase is due to the addition of a mezzanine floor, which in all other Tesco stores is used solely for comparison shopping, only an estimated 500 sqm will be for increased convenience shopping.

This makes a total of 2885 sqm (Tesco Express 250 + Morrison’s 2135 + Tesco Holmbush 500) of convenience shopping floorspace that has either been built or for which planning consent has been granted since 2010.  This represents a difference of 3615 sqm, 44% of the total, left unaccounted for from that stated in the Town Framework Plan.

Comparison shopping

The re-development at Tesco Holmbush would add approximately 2770 sqm of comparison floorspace, whilst the Tesco Express has added about 20 sqm The proposed Morrison’s store would add a further 710 sqm, making a total of 3500 sqm. This would indicate that the amount of floorspace for comparison shopping, either built or planned, already exceeds that which is stated in the Town Framework Plan by 1429 sqm or 45%.

Retail Conclusion

The obvious conclusion is that the figures shown in the Town Framework Plan are incorrect by quite a large margin and detailed explanation would need to be given to justify them.  Furthermore, policy PP9 of the Cornwall Local Plan Strategic Policies Proposed Submission 2013 states: “It is estimated that there is capacity for the provision of an additional 4,900sqm of Convenience and 16,650sqm of Comparison A1 net sales floorspace in the centre, edge-of-centre and out-of-centre locations of the town up to 2030”. This statement was also repeated in the GVA Grimley report of March 2013, which was the document accepted by the Cornwall County Council Strategic Planning Committee in January 2014.

It can, therefore, be taken that the word ‘additional’ in the above paragraph means over and above that which has already been built or for which planning permission has been granted. In the event that the Town Framework Plan figures are correct – which would need to be justified - this would mean that there is still capacity for additional convenience floorspace of 4900 sqm, roughly equivalent to twice the current size of the Tesco store in Holmbush. However, if the figures are proved to be incorrect, then the capacity would increase to almost exactly double the size of Asda in St. Austell, 8515 sqm.

As far as comparison shopping is concerned, whether or not the figures in the Town Framework Plan are proved to be correct, the 16650 sqm of additional comparison floorspace recommended in the above report would be enough to fill approximately 4 stores the size of Asda in St. Austell and there are no suitable sites of that size mentioned in the Town Framework Plan.

 

Housing: Which of the proposed housing options do you think should be prioritised?”

 

Since 2010 approximately 580 new dwellings have been built with approximately a further 1,180 dwellings having obtained planning permission”.  The plan on page 28 shows only 195 houses (not 1180) on two sites with granted planning permission and 840 proposed houses on four other sites, two of which, SAUE 2 & 4, have already had planning permission refused. This means that the town still needs to build a further 385 houses over and above those already built, planned and proposed. This would conclude that the only choice for SAUE1 is be used solely for housing, should it become available.

 

However, before any further building can take place, the infrastructure of the town will have to be improved to take account of an increase in population of around 15%:

•             Only the NHS can say whether or not there will be one extra doctor, not the Council. The government’s cessation of the Minimum Practice Income Grant will already force rural surgeries to close, putting more pressure on those in towns.

•             Only South Western Trains will decide whether or not to increase the number of trains between Penzance & Plymouth, not the Council.

•             Only the bus companies will decide whether or not to add services, not the Council.

•             No new leisure facilities have been planned, despite the lower than average amount of sports facilities in town.

 

The proposal is to build houses to the East of the town, yet Pondhu school to the west is set to be enlarged.  I quote from page 3:  “Traffic congestion is a particular issue through the south of the town along the A390 with resulting poor air quality issues.” Green Heart of Cornwall?

 

If you are wondering why I have been so critical of this document, I would suggest that you take a look at the Truro version: http://www.truro-chamber.co.uk/assets/file/Truro%20Centre%20-%20Draft_FinalReport_-SecV.pdf.   Theirs is what a Town Framework Plan should look like – a statement, not just a ‘Vision’.

Mike Stanford 16th April 2014

St Austell Town Framework Consultation, FAO Helen Nicholson, Room 208a, St Austell One Stop Shop, 39 Penwinnick Road, St Austell, PL25 5DR

delivery@cornwall.gov.uk

Alternatively complete the online survey for your feedback

.