25th June 2007

See Martin Whitesides letter to local press on this issue and look at some of the background to this decision. 

Photo: Dursley  

Letter to Gazette and other papers below - click here for further info: 

The decision to grant planning permission to Sainsbury's in Dursley should have been preceded by a genuine review of all the options to regenerate this fine market town.

Although Stroud District Council commissioned reports in 1990 and 2002, these appear to be more about supporting the view that a supermarket is the way forward - rather than considering any alternatives. SDC have also ignored polls expressing majority opposition to the proposed supermarket in Dursley in both 1993 and 1999, despite the Councils avowed support for community involvement.

The Council was naive in its original negotiations with Tesco's: if Tesco had really wanted to develop this site they would have done so many years ago. However instead, Tesco applied extraordinary pressure on the Coop to sell it's supermarket in Cam and the District Council has continued to push for a supermarket as the only way to regenerate Dursley.

There is precious little evidence that supermarkets have any beneficial effects on local economies or communities. The Castle Street site has managed to blight Dursley even before the supermarket has been built. And now we will also see locally cherished buildings, that provide a much needed sense of place and continuity, being pulled down to make way for this supermarket despite pleas by English Heritage and others to save them.

Almost twenty years after being blighted by out and edge of town supermarkets, Stroud Town is beginning to see a revival in independant food retailers, we can only hope that Dursley will not now be faced with decades more of a declining town centre.  More vision is needed to protect and develop some of our local shopping centres.

Martin Whiteside
Hillside, Claypits Lane, Thrupp, Stroud
Green Party Parliamentary Spokesperson