Planning Committee Rejects Tesco’s Plans
The Parish Council planning committee have rejected Tesco’s plans by a majority vote of 4 to 1 and this recommendation will be passed on to Bradford Council.
The council meeting was attended by several members of IRATE, one of whom read out a statement objecting to the plans on behalf of the group.
IRATE were impressed with the level and detail of discussion at the meeting. We believe the decision of the council represents the majority of Ilkley residents, as demonstrated by the thousands of objection letters that have been received by the council.
The overwhelming level of opposition to the plans seems to have upset some people. During the meeting Councillor Emsley likened IRATE to a ‘vigilante group’. We think this substantially lowered the tone of the debate and is, frankly, rather ridiculous.
IRATE have simply become a focus for the extremely strong opposition to the Tesco plans - hence the overwhelming response in terms of objections to the council. At no point have we intimidated anyone - all we have done is present the facts as we see them. The fact that no group has formed in favour of Tesco’s plans simply shows how little support there is for this proposed development by the people of Ilkley.
Tesco Re-submits Plans
Tesco are proposing to build a massive superstore on the old Spooners site on Railway Road in Ilkley. IRATE (Ilkley Residents Against Tesco Expansion) is a group of residents opposed to this development.
View of the proposed store from Mayfield Road
Tesco have now submitted their revised plans for the store. At over 80,000 sq. ft the store will be considerably larger than the previous application.
You can still send in your objections - they will be accepted right up until the date of the planning meeting to consider the application (no date has been set for this yet).
The plans are on display at Ilkley Town Hall - we urge you to take a look. You can also view the plans online here. Here are some of the headlines:
- The proposed store will be 2.4 times the size of the current store (83,358 sq. ft compared to 34,650 sq. ft Gross Floor Area)
- Predicted take from: Booths = £1.6m; M&S = £0.36m; Town Centre = £4.1m
- Tesco admit it is outside town centre boundary.
- According to Tesco’s own figures traffic will increase on the surrounding narrow residential streets. At peak times the number of cars trips will increase to 936 an hour – or one every 3.8 seconds!
- This is an increase of 4 times the existing peak traffic of 229 cars per hour at Railway Road.
- It is an increase of 2 times the peak traffic of 440 cars per hour at the existing store.
For those that want to study the plans in detail two CD-ROMS are available to borrow from the Planning Office (first on the left, ground floor) at the Town Hall in Ilkley - one CD for the new store and the other for the Springs Lane development. They have to be signed for and can be borrowed for 48 hours.
If you would like to keep up to date with what IRATE is doing please join our mailing list.
How to object to the plans
Sending an objection to the council is the only way you can officially make your views known. The more objections we send in - the more the planners will take our concerns seriously.
The easiest, and probably best, way is to use our simple online objection form.
Alternatively you can download our pro-forma objection letter here.
IRATE Poster
We have created a poster for the campaign - you may have seen it on shops and houses around the town:
If you would like to print out a copy to display you can download it here.