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Jobs boost in store?
SUPERSTORE wars are threatening plans for a major jobs boost in the borough, it was claimed today.
High street giant Sainsbury’s wants to use an existing half empty industrial estate off Bridge Street in Golborne - which planners would have to re-zone for retail before approval - for a huge new store to be opened in summer 2014.
But lawyers representing the neighbouring Asda-Walmart site in Edge Green Lane have formally protested to the council about the loss of industrial land.
Now former leader of the opposition on the council Peter Franzen is heading a campaign to save the scheme.
The Community Action Party chief - who lives only a matter of hundreds of yards away from the Millingford Industrial Estate complex - says that store will be a huge boost for Golborne.
Wigan planning chiefs confirm the scheme was lodged in October but say that they have no date yet for when the application will be put before councillors. They are said to be considering putting the matter into the hands of external planning consultants because of the potential legal minefield.
Sainsbury’s want to build a 60,000sqft supermarket, cafe and petrol filling station on the former spinning and dyeing mill site which borders the West Coast main railway line.
It would offer 425 full and part-time jobs along with a 480-space car park which will also be available for town centre shoppers to use.
Golborne Asda failed to respond to our inquiries about their objection to the Sainsbury’s scheme.
But in documentation outlining their objection, their lawyers dispute the council’s classification of the store as “out of town” and the council’s own retail impact report on their operation.
But Mr Franzen said: “This could be the best thing to happen to Golborne for years and I fully support Sainsbury’s. They are talking about millions of pounds in investment in a town that for decades has suffered neglect and decline.
“The 400 jobs are absolutely crucial, of course, but there are some real public gains that will mean a lot to this town such as toilets and the car park.
“This could bring people back into town, which is so important to the remaining businesses which have struggled or closed. Opening a Sainsbury’s could attract up to 2,000 people a day. The industrial estate is half empty and falling into a real state of disrepair because the landlords can’t make it pay and the last thing we want is for another eyesore on this route into town.”
Sainsbury’s declined to comment.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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Comments
There are 25 comments to this article
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peter franzen
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 02:07 PMComment 24 JemmyH Thanks for the nostalgic link. It was cool or should I say “coal”. However my comment referred to the difficulty of accessing the West Coast Main Line from Parkside. As the West Coast Main Line (WCML) is already congested, Parkside would be increasingly used as a road freight terminal, not a rail freight interchange. Owing to the congested WCML, any freight trains using Parkside would have to run at night. As Parkside is directly inaccessible from the WCML, the ½ mile long rail freight trains would cause massive disruption to the thousands of Newton, Earlestown, Winwick and Lowton residents who live within earshot of the Manchester-Liverpool Main Line. The concept of road-to-rail is a perfectly environmentally sound idea, but in this case has been hijacked to facilitate the construction of a road freight terminal. The developers conservatively estimate 5,000 HGVs accessing Parkside per day; that’s 10,000 HGV movements, entering and exiting Parkside, which amounts to an HGV every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As the Parkside SRFI would be the biggest in Europe, and along with the poor capacity of the WCML, it is likely that this figure would in fact be many thousands more.
JemmyH
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 09:40 PMPeter. You're saying the rail connection at the Parkside site would be impractical? How do you think all those trains of coal wagons leaving Parkside site managed it? ........ Have a watch of this - http:www.youtube.comwatch?v=TX2qQ0rMHG0 ........ Anyway, what's all this "272 hectares of our local Greenbelt"? .... Firstly, the total site area is 116 hectares. And, it's not YOUR greenbelt. ..... Now, if it was being planned in Wigan Borough instead of in St.Helens, the council would be all for it, regardless of what greenbelt had to be used for the purpose. They'd be blowing their own trumpets off the top of Scholes flats if it was proposed for somewhere like Westwood power station site.
peter franzen
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 02:14 PMComment 22 Scarecrow It’s about the scale and the practical difficulty of accessing the West Coast main Line from the Parkside site. The rail freight element is minimal and a pre-text to draw down grant funding and push through a massive commercial development in 272 hectares of our local Greenbelt. The fact is that the proposed Parkside terminal is 95% a road freight storage depot. Since this topic is about a proposed Sainsbury’s store in Golborne I don’t intend to get bogged down in a protracted debate about Parkside. However you might find the following link useful: http:www.parksideactiongroup.org.ukindex.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=66
Scarecrow
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 08:48 AMPeter Franzen How is then that trains and lorries can access other rail freight terminals along the West Coast main line without any problems?
peter franzen
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 01:34 AMComment 19 LoobyLou2 Asda has provided jobs and choice for local people for forty years and long may that continue. The real benefit from Sainsbury’s will be more jobs and choice for local people and up to 2000 more visitors to Golborne every day.
peter franzen
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 01:23 AMComment 18 rockcottage Your abusive comments and vague criticisms of me are of no consequence. You don’t even have the courage to post your derogatory comments under your own name. More to the point you haven't even addressed the subject matter of the Wigan evening Post report.
LoobyLou2
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 11:19 PMGolborne Asda has employed mainly local people since it opened in 1972 and it hasn't been responsible for closure of Golborne Town Centre shops. A Sainsbury store may well bring lots of jobs to our community but a lot of fellow Golborners who I've spoken to, won't be regular shoppers there as it is on the whole, expensive.
rockcottage
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 03:28 PMFranzen..sorry but I'm not your 'usual' troll (as you put it) I've NEVER criticized you before. As I see it though, criticism of you is way overdue from my point of view. Let's not forget though...it is only MY opinion. It doesn't make me right or wrong. However, until you prove to me that you are useful. My opinion hasn't changed.
peter franzen
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 01:38 PMScarecrow comment 14 Contrary to your perception the Parkside freight terminal was falsely promoted as a “rail freight terminal” when in fact it was nothing of the sort. If you had taken the trouble to read the proposals you would be aware that 95% of the freight would have arrived by road and 95% of the freight would have left by road. It would not be possible for more than a few trains each day to access the West Coast Mainline due to the time it would take and the disruption it would cause. In reality the proposal was for a massive road freight terminal and skyscraper warehousing.
peter franzen
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 01:22 PMComments 12, 13, and 15 I see the usual ill-informed abusive trolls and misfits are still infesting this website.
rockcottage
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 11:26 AMFranzen...the original chocolate fireguard template. In other words...useless.
Scarecrow
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:19 AMPeter Franzen You don't half come out with some nonsense. The idea of Freight Terminals is to take HGV's carrying one container off our congested motorways and distributing the goods delivered by a multi container Train, on a more local level like they do in the rest of Europe.
JSP
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 11:59 PMComment removed by moderator
cgaf
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 11:48 PMComment removed by moderator
peter franzen
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 10:45 PMJemmyH Comment No. 8 Tell that to the shoe shops, fruit and veg shops, flower shops, travel agents, car spares shops, toy shops, news agents, off licences, clothing shops etc. that have closed due to Asda and decades of neglect and decline by Labour controlled Wigan Council. The damage was started forty years ago and Sainsbury’s can only help to regenerate the town by massive inward investment, environmental improvements, creating 425 jobs and bringing in new business and up to 2000 customers each day. Do you live here or even care about Golborne?
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