Latest on Tesco site development

[Canny lass]

One of the nice hings about this site Pauls, is that there is no obligation to contribute, or even to read the contributions of others. Members enter discussion of their own free will should they feel that they have a contribution to make or a question to ask, so I’m sorry if you feel that you are being ’dragged’ into a discussion against your will. That was certainly not my intention.

I’ve read through the topic again and I don’t see that I, or anyone else, has said that parents were better or worse in the1950s than they are today. I think you may be misinterpreting my response to your argument that ”few kids in those days (1950s) grew up in households where both parents worked full time so there was more scope for parents to take them to facilities that were further afield”.

I found that statement to be far from how I remembered my childhood and that of my peers. I responded with a counter argument, claiming that there was in fact less scope, as working hours were longer for both parents. Additionally I argued that less money was available to parents than today, which further decreased the scope for providing outings to facilities further away. I supported those arguments as best I could with factual information from my own childhood but at no time did I suggest that parents were either better or worse than they are now. I did suggest that perhaps parents of the 1950s prioritised other things than parents of today – there are, after all, some things today which didn’t exist then, thus eradicating that need - but I did not suggest that their priorities were better or worse than those of today’s parents.

However, I have to disagree with you about the relevance of parents to a discussion about public leisure facilities, because without parents involvement, children would not be seeing the inside of a leisure complex until they were teenagers, and that would be far too late. Again, I’m sorry if you’ve misunderstood my contribution to the discussion.
 

In relation to your last statement It appears it is I who may have misunderstood. I believed that we were talking about the facilities provided by NCC in ’their’ districts and that being the case it is the facilities provided elsewhere in the country that are of not really relevant. Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought taxes paid by residents went into a communal pot. If that’s not the case can you, or anybody else, please explain to me how the 600 or so residents of Otterburn managed to get a school, a bed in a hospital or a road to get them to their nearest leisure centre, 15 miles/27 minutes away in Rothbury?

 

[rosco]

Work next door the the Aldi store seems to have dried up

[lilbill15]

4 minutes ago, rosco said:

Work next door the the Aldi store seems to have dried up

Has Aldi opened yet, please? x

[_pauls]

6 minutes ago, lilbill15 said:

Has Aldi opened yet, please? x

Not yet - 25th I think.

[lilbill15]

49 minutes ago, _pauls said:

Not yet - 25th I think.

Thank you very much 😁🌈x

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

On 12/11/2021 at 19:08, _pauls said:

Not yet - 25th I think.

@lilbill15 - it did open on the 25th - https://www.aldi.co.uk/bedlington

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/ps2m-funding-boost-for-vital-town-centre-development-3653039?fbclid=IwAR3Ustv1Y_cDOJlkdd8pnJnF_3-fk28IlSTc2ezAGr19tejNXCEY1PPATJI

Edited April 14, 2022 by Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)

[_pauls]

"Further investment of just over £2 million to ensure the project is completed."

 

Part of the problem is nobody seems to know what the project is any more. I'm assuming that what is referred to here is the four new retail units and associated flats, rather than any of the other plans.

 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

On 05/06/2017 at 08:45, _pauls said:

Much as I hope you're right, I interpreted the comments about amending the plans as fine tuning rather than a total rethink, and given that Ashington's new leisure centre cost double what the whole project for Bedlington is costing I doubt that Arch/the council will be able to squeeze it in.

Can't help you there @_pauls - it's just what @Malcolm Robinson had posted on his FB page. 

[rosco]

8 hours ago, _pauls said:

"Further investment of just over £2 million to ensure the project is completed."

 

Part of the problem is nobody seems to know what the project is any more. I'm assuming that what is referred to here is the four new retail units and associated flats, rather than any of the other plans.

 

Your hopeful......4 new retail units....... Aldi plus a new Greggs and a load of flats is probably the best we can hope for, it been a total cock up from start to whenever it finishes

Edited April 15, 2022 by rosco

[Malcolm Robinson]

16 hours ago, _pauls said:

"Further investment of just over £2 million to ensure the project is completed."

 

Part of the problem is nobody seems to know what the project is any more. I'm assuming that what is referred to here is the four new retail units and associated flats, rather than any of the other plans.

 

Just so.   And I wouldnt disafgree with rosco's last bit of his take!!!!!

[_pauls]

It is perhaps symbolic that emailing the "contact us" address on Investing in Bedlington results in a bounce with a "No Such User Here" 

9 months since the last update on there. I wonder why they don't take the site down and save themselves the embarrassment of a monument to 7 years of broken promises.

I wonder how many of the benefits of the scheme can now be safely ticked off the list?

 

[rosco]

1 hour ago, _pauls said:

It is perhaps symbolic that emailing the "contact us" address on Investing in Bedlington results in a bounce with a "No Such User Here" 

9 months since the last update on there. I wonder why they don't take the site down and save themselves the embarrassment of a monument to 7 years of broken promises.

I wonder how many of the benefits of the scheme can now be safely ticked off the list?

 

You can put a big red cross through all six.......school report would read as a D- 

[Canny lass]

On 24/07/2022 at 13:06, _pauls said:

emailing the "contact us" address on Investing in Bedlington results in a bounce with a "No Such User Here" 

Worked fine just 5 minutes ago. I recieved a "Thank you for contacting us" reply immediately. Did you complete the  11+1, 22+5 correctly?

[_pauls]

4 hours ago, Canny lass said:

Worked fine just 5 minutes ago. I recieved a "Thank you for contacting us" reply immediately. Did you complete the  11+1, 22+5 correctly?

I used the email address that appears at the foot of each page rather than the webform on the contact us page.

[Canny lass]

Sorry, didn't see that. However, they can be contacted and they do reply. Perhaps if it's important you could try the contact us page. It works fine.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Malcolm Robinson Bedlington West Ward.

18 m  · 

 

With the furore generated about this new hotel idea and it seems I’m somehow involved and not paying heed to democracy, let’s lay out what really happened over the years.

When Labour was originally in charge their idea was to build 60 odd houses in what was Tesco’s car park. Around 700 of us turned up at the library and told them in no uncertain terms that we wanted to see commercial development in the town centre not housing! That plan was hastily redrawn!

We then had a consultation on the proposed town centre design and were given 4 options for the layout as well as the styles of buildings. Most of us picked the ‘wrong’ design and the scheme went forward with the designs that the great and good thought were best for us!

We saw the Make a Noise demo which was supposed to give a kick up the backside and demonstrate local feelings yet still nothing happened.

The Tories then came into power at NCC claiming Bedlington was very important to ‘us’. To be fair we did see £12-14M in one year’s budget for our Town Centre redevelopment but as they are annual budgets and no substantial scheme came forward that money never materialised!

We finally saw a scheme come forward which had around 45,000sq ft of retail development, of which Aldi was just under 20,000sq ft and the linchpin for the whole development.

Covid came along and all the potential retailers went underground with a cull on all their new developments. Aldi were persuaded to carry on with theirs.

The Gov then announced funding to get schemes like the one for Bedlington back on track and we managed to secure that funding by matching it. This is what is being used to do the 4 shops and 6 apartments at the Market Place.

We then saw potential funding in the Borderlands project albeit on a much reduced level (£3M) but still that could be seed funding to get the main development back on track.

(Several community consultations later and we still see a leisure offer as being consistently the number one response. )

Another community consultation on what people wanted to see developed has resulted in over 35 potential projects which are to be wrapped up in a Bedlington Place Plan.

We then see a hotel project being put forward not by NCC but by local councillors, of which I’m certainly not one of them. This scheme at Bedlington Station could wipe out all the Borderlands funding for the whole of Bedlington! That wasn’t why I fought to get Bedlington into the Borderlands funding and kept pushing it along!

https://www.youtube.com/live/Q4zZGP1LXjI...

 

With that out of the way I do believe we need to see Bedlington as a destination town and for that we need a USP. We do need the normal range of what anyone would expect in a Town the size of Bedlington but we also need a draw so we get footfall from other places too. That’s the opportunity I see in getting the marketplace development right.

PS. Back in the annuls of time in the late 60’s just before Wansbeck District Council came into being, Bedlington Urban District Council had plans for a hotel and leisure centre in Bedlington Town Centre. Pity they didn’t see them through!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)