The Future of Madeley Centre
On the 7th February at a meeting of the Telford and Wrekin Plans Sub-Board a decision was taken to accept the planning officers’ recommendation to give outline planning consent to a 3,260 sq. m. development.
Madeley Parish Council stated in December 2000 that although it didn’t have any objections in principle to the development of a supermarket these latest proposals were deeply flawed because:
- Scheme does not take into account Conservation Area status of its surroundings
- Scheme does not satisfy policies contained within the Wrekin Local Plan 1995 – 2006
- Scheme is for the development, not redevelopment, of Madeley Centre
- Scheme is developer led and imposed on locality
In brief, the arguments against the plans are:
Roads are too narrow to take the traffic affecting all roads around Madeley, not just direct routes to the shopping centre. Local traffic would probably use Church Street to avoid jams on Maddocks, and back up all the way up Park Street. High Street would be extended directly into the new car park, making seven times as many parking places accessible from High Street as at present. This would cause problems not just for people on High Street, but for everyone living in streets you can only get to from High Street – Hanover Court, The Rookery, Tynsley Terrace, Tynsley Court, Court Street and Burnt Hall Lane.
A big supermarket will put other food shops out of business, while shops selling other goods are also likely to be undercut. This isn’t just doom and gloom; it is what the Council’s own retail survey predicted.
Almost all the development site is surrounded by the Conservation area, which is part of the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, and at least an acre of the Webster-Wilkinson site is actually IN the World Heritage Site.
This means the council, according to their own guidelines on planning decisions, should not have been considering outline planning permission in the first place. They should have insisted on detailed plans, so that we could see what it actually looks like, and how it fitted – or not – with all the listed buildings in the surrounding area.
STOP PRESS... we have just heard that the Regional Government Office have decided not to “Call In” the plans. However, the developers need detailed planning permission before they can carry out any work on the site
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