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Sainsbury goes to planning for Kiln Lane

June 29^th 2009

Sainsbury has launched a planning application for a 20,000 square foot supermarket on the Kiln Lane site in Louth, slightly smaller than the 25,000 sq ft store originally envisaged. The number of parking spaces available will fall to 136, from 165 in the retailer’s original draft plan in November. Other changes include adding various flood defence plans and lifting the store height.

Our view is that with a new Morrisons store already replacing Somerfield, and the likely approval of 15,000 square feet of new supermarket space in Queen Street, this huge amount of new food shopping space is unnecessary. It is a poor and very cramped location, too far from the centre to bring in new shoppers to existing stores, and will eat up even more of the town's available long-stay parking than originally envisaged. Residents of Eve Street, Charles Street and James Street already have to put up with noisy deliveries at all hours by giant vehicles serving the Co-op. The addition of many more trucks, with their reverse beeping and air brakes echoing right outside their windows will make life intolerable.

“Louth is a distinctive market town, crammed with award-winning traditional shops which give it a character and vibrancy quite different from the dull clone towns of much of the rest of the country. This development would risk choking the town centre with traffic, yet draw business away from it,” said KLS spokesman Nick Louth. “We at KLS hope the planners will recognise these drawbacks and reject the application."

We note that Sainsbury plans to create 200 jobs on the site. However, such stores only draw spending from elsewhere, so jobs will clearly be lost elsewhere too. The National Retail Planning Forum found in a 1998 survey that the opening of a new superstore caused an average net loss of 229 full-time job equivalents within a 15 km radius. The reasons are fairly clear. Supermarkets employ fewer staff per thousand pounds of turnover than the local stores they replace. Most spending they gain is not new, but transferred from existing stores within the catchment area. Additionally, the quality of jobs provided by supermarkets is often lower than the ones they replace. Shelf stackers and check-out staff are required, while in rival shops jobs are lost among bakers, butchers and fishmongers.

We urge everyone to look at the planning application. Residents of nearby streets should make their concerns on noise and traffic known to their local councillors, as well as writing directly to ELDC and to LCC Highways (which reviews the traffic and road elements of planning applications.)

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