info@keeplouthspecial.org.uk
Keep Louth Special
Towns hit or under supermarket threat
Petition final tally: 5,300 signatures See our reaction to the cattle market report. Click on the picture to see the BBC interview Visit Keep Louth Special on facebook ***** Tesco wins Sheringham fight – see news Towns hit or under supermarket threat: Hexham, Castle Douglas, St Neots Warminster, Exeter, Dumfries Fakenham, Stafford, Winchester Market Rasen, Dorchester, Barnsley Hertford, Halesowen, Newport Driffield, Newbury, Kendal Withernsea, Guildford, Falkirk Uttoxeter, Devizes, Stourbridge Nantwich, Haywards Heath, Northwich Diss, Maidstone, Lancaster Wantage, Maidenhead, Scarborough Weston-Super-Mare, Woking, Doncaster Wokingham, Hitchin, Cheltenham, Bury St.Edmunds, Burgess Hill, Brigg, Bathgate, Kircaldy Northampton, Torquay, Pontefract Market Harborough, Asford Gainsborough Have your say Join Us and keep Louth off this list. Click here to fill in our sample letter to send to your councillor.
Petition final tally: 5,300 signatures
See our reaction to the cattle market report.
Click on the picture to see the BBC interview
Visit Keep Louth Special on facebook
*****
Tesco wins Sheringham fight – see news
Towns hit or under supermarket threat:
What You Can Do
Join Us
KLS on facebook
Your Doubts...Our Answers
ELDC Policies are Flawed
Louth Food Bargains
Latest News
Two victories for Keep Louth Special
February 4th 2009
In the last few days we have had two great victories in our campaign to Keep Louth Special, which should hearten us all considerably.
East Lindsey District Council has confirmed in a letter to Louth Town Council that it will be accepting the January that it would be accepting the 2007 Sustainable Communities Act (download the PDF for details). This gives local groups like ourselves a much stronger consultative role in local and central government actions affecting sustainability. As ELDC acknowledges:
“It begins from the principle that local people know best what needs
to be done to promote the sustainability of their area, but that sometimes they need central government to act to enable them to do so.”
Secondly, East Lindsey’s head of planning, Simon Machen, confirmed that the council has agreed to commission a new study of retail capacity in Louth to replace the Farrell Bass Pritchard report. We would like to think that this is in some way an acknowledgment of KLS pointing out its many weaknesses, but it is also clear that it has been overtaken by developments including the Queen Street supermarket application, the closure of Woolworths, the arrival of Morrison and the Sainsbury proposal.
We and other local groups will have an input into the terms of reference for that new study, but it will not be commissioned until the government has finished changes to PPS6. This is the document which enshrines government principles to keeping out-of-town retail development under control by emphasising town centres. A firmly maintained commitment to PPS6 is important for our aims, and we await the final version of rules which will be published in a white paper. The green paper, which is consultative (download the PDF for details), suggested that the ‘needs test’ in planning policy, which is essentially what the current FBP report could be used to support, should be replaced by an ‘impact test.’ which would include the effect on other businesses and the vitality of the town centre. Much depends on how the final legislation is couched. Supermarkets have the ear of government, so we should not expect this to give local communities all the ammunition they need.
[Back]
