Should the town worry about the planning inspector’s decision to allow Tesco in Rhuthun to expand, to overturn Denbighshire’s October refusal? Last October, in balancing the probabilities, Denbighshire’s planning officers recommended that the expansion be permitted; we should therefore assume that they considered a larger Tesco was good for Rhuthun. Up to the October planning committee, the town council supported the extra floor space. So far as we recall, they changed their minds ahead of the planning appeal.
An unrepresentative online poll by the Free Press suggested that three out of four people thought Tesco was A Good Thing. Whether those same people wished for (or on the other hand were even concerned about) a larger store we will never know.
Yet, there was still that niggle, like a tickly cough that refuses to go away, that a larger Tesco would weaken the town, even suck the life out of it. In now famous remarks made at the very Denbighshire planning committee considering the expansion, footfall within the town was said to be significantly down since Tesco opened. At the time, we referred (with due caution) to what appeared to be a large body of opinion that believes the promises make by supermarkets at their development turn out to be hollow after a few years, that effectively there can be no promised increase in choice after subsequent closures in town centres.
An unrepresentative online poll by the Free Press suggested that three out of four people thought Tesco was A Good Thing. Whether those same people wished for (or on the other hand were even concerned about) a larger store we will never know.
Yet, there was still that niggle, like a tickly cough that refuses to go away, that a larger Tesco would weaken the town, even suck the life out of it. In now famous remarks made at the very Denbighshire planning committee considering the expansion, footfall within the town was said to be significantly down since Tesco opened. At the time, we referred (with due caution) to what appeared to be a large body of opinion that believes the promises make by supermarkets at their development turn out to be hollow after a few years, that effectively there can be no promised increase in choice after subsequent closures in town centres.
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