From: Sandra Sheldrick 
Sent: 19 September 2011 13:56
To: sandra.sheldrick
Subject: Retail Impact

Attachments: image001.jpg; Cttee Report June 2011.pdf

 

From: Alex Mitchell 
Sent: 19 September 2011 09:47
To: McLaughlin, Ross; 'bruce.weir
Cc: Reppke, Charles; Close, Brian; Eaglesham, David; yusuf; Whyte, Grant; Lodge, Mark
Subject: RE: Telephone Conversation

 

Ross, 

 

 

Further to your email to Bruce I wish to respond on only a few matters which points me clearly in the direction that our application is not being fairly treated by your department. There are a number of other points, however, given the committee date is nearly upon us I will not go through all of them in this email. 

 

1                     You are right that we did disagree about approach to the interpretation of the Settlement Strategy but your recent response to Bruce confuses the issue again. We do not dispute that there is a policy LP RET1 B that sets out a sequential approach and puts town centres first and then edge of centres. For clarity this is not disputed. The point that requires clarification is the matter relating to the Settlement Strategy, which is a different policy from the sequential approach. The issue however about the protection of ‘town centres only’ relates to our concerns over Reason for Refusal No 2. This reason states that “there is a significant detrimental impact on the vitality and viability of the town centre and other retail outlets”. This is further compounded by the paragraph in the original committee report at page 54 that states “ ... the retail impact assessment does not justify a third large foodstore within  Dunoon to directly compete with Morrisons and the Co-op that have Main Town centre and Edge of Centre locations respectively, in addition to the impact on other convenience/comparison outlets in the town centre and surrounding areas.”.  The issue with these statements is the references to “other retail outlets” and “the co-op and an edge of centre location”. Policy RET1 is quite clear in Section D that it is the impact on town centres that is to be considered. This is supported in the Justification on page 40 of the local plan “the aim of the policy is to protect and enhance the vitality and viability of the defined town centres”.  It is the case that your department has recommended refusal of my clients application because of impact on the Co-op and other retail outlets NOT in the town centre. This position is not supported by policy and we have asked for this to be clarified. The matter is now compounded by the assessment of the national grid application which states at page 147 Section P “The assessment on the Co-op has not been assessed as this store is outwith the town centre and does not enjoy the same degree of protection afforded by the Local plan retail policy as the town centre as a whole”. This position is further repeated at Page 166 under “Assessment”  which states “The impact on the turnover of other convenience stores in Dunoon outwith the town centre (including the Co-op) and convenience shops in villages has not been calculated as it does not enjoy the same degree of policy protection”.  

 

It is not fair that we have a situation where my clients application is recommended for refusal due to impact on the co-op and other stores outwith the town centre but the assessment of the national grid application confirms our stated position that they have no policy protection. Can you confirm why there is a difference in the interpretation of the same policies between the two proposals?

 

2                     Household survey – it is helpful that you have now confirmed your position on this. It is disappointing though given the information has been with your department for over a year, and I wrote seeking clarification on this matter to Brian Close on 28 march 2011 (and did not receive a response) and emailed you on 8 August, some 5 weeks ago. You are correct that we were asked for a household survey (as opposed to a “properly constructed household survey”) and that I declined this. I declined this as it was my view that one was not necessary as the catchment was not complicated. There is only a couple of food shops and the money was either being spent in those shops or outwith. If outwith then it was across the water.  The NSLSP provides a half way house in between ‘no’ survey and a bespoke household survey but it is wrong to say that it is not appropriate at local level. Indeed I would welcome by return your experience of the data and the evidence you can provide to support this claim that it is not appropriate to use at local level. I would also direct you to my letter to Brian Close dated 28 March 2011 which includes a response from the survey suppliers CBRE clarifying the basis of the survey data. I would also bring to your attention the attached committee report that supported a foodstore development in Hamilton in June using the NSLSP data (para 6.7). In this instance, and i can confirm others if required, the planning authority did not take issue with the survey data at local level. In this context I will be interested to hear from your experiences of the data and how you have arrived at your conclusion. Although I fear you have no such evidence as it appears your comments in the committee report and your email are heavily reliant on the GL Hearn objection letter dated 27 Oct 2010. However as you say this matter was not fatal but it is critical now in terms of the assessment of the national grid application. You claim you requested from us a “properly constructed household survey” which I assume was required to allow your department to have considered data at a local level to inform judgements on turnover, leakage and impact and to come to any conclusion on a proposal. Indeed you clearly set this out in the national grid committee report on page 166 under methodology and quote “ a well designed household survey is deemed more reliable where key matters such as specific store used by main food shoppers, reason for visiting certain stores, how they travel, whether they are undertaking linked trips and how much they spend in each store can all be quantified”. 

 

If this is what your department requires, why has no such survey been requested from National Grid which is even more bizarre given you have stated in their committee report that is your requirement . I am also aware that no such survey was requested in relation to the Tesco in Campbeltown.  This clearly demonstrates that my client is not being treated fairly in this regard. 

 

3                     I have made numerous comments on retail impact and the assessment of our application and have still no appreciation that the points we have made are understood or have been given careful consideration. I would refer you back to my email of 8 August , point 3. This raises some serious matters which are not to do with professional judgement or differences of opinion. These are the stated facts as published in the various reports and to date no-one in your department has sought to clarify any of these matters. It also raises some serious queries about the views expressed in the committee report regarding our community consultation data. This information was reported in a selective way to present a pre-determined opinion, it did not present all the facts. But again no attempt has been made to address or clarify these comments which is unfair to my client. Your email to Bruce also introduces further inconsistencies. In your email you state that the Council “ advocate using the average turnover of the top 4 supermarket operators to assess the turnover of the proposed store in the absence of a known operator”. This however is not what is stated in our original committee report at page 48 which states, i quote “...and where the operator is  not known, an average of the top 5 operators is usually used”. This inconsistency provides little comfort that our assessment has been fairly considered. You also claimed that “Alex Mitchell prefers to use a figure which is 75% of the average”. This is not the case. I do not have any such preference. After discussions with your colleagues I was asked to justify the turnover. I therefore reviewed a number of similar applications in similar locations and reviewed the turnovers that were promoted and accepted on those instances. This exercise indicated that turnovers being accepted were 67% below national averages so a figure of 75% was considered reasonable. This is clearly set out in our Planning and Retail Statement. 

 

In complete contrast Montagu Evans simply state they think 80% of national average is appropriate with no evidence and your department accepts this. Again this is inconsistent and unfair to the my clients position. You also state in your email that “Alex Mitchell is quite happy to apply average turnovers to the existing stores in Dunoon...”. Once again this is a factually incorrect statement. The assessment of turnover of existing stores in Dunoon has been derived using the NSLSP data above. This further gives me no comfort as to the assessment of my clients application on retail matters - how can you in the same email make such a claim when at the same time be critical of our use of the NSLSP data to derive turnovers. It has to be one or the other, not both and it is concerning that you do not recognise and understand this.

 

4                     There is a number of incorrect statements and judgements in the national grid application regarding impact. These are not differences of opinion or differences in approach. There are too many to highlight at this time but I am concerned even at the way the data has been presented. For example, Section M on page 171 the national grid report states about my clients application “an unacceptable level of impact (14.7% on convenience and 3.7% on comparison in the town centre) on the vitality and viability of Dunoon Town Centre.  The proposed development anticipate a predicted impact of 8% impact on the convenience (excluding Morrisons) and 2.8% impact on the comparison (excluding Morrisons) within the town centre”. It is not clear to me why you have quoted our estimates of impact including the impact on Morrisons against National Grids estimates excluding Morrisons. As you clearly point out elsewhere in the National Grid report (page 166) “..the convenience impact on the town centre as a whole of the NG proposal would be 20.5%”. 

 

This is not fairly comparing the proposals and in my view is designed to shed my clients proposal in the worst light possible compared to the National Grid application. This is clearly unfair and biased. 

           

 

5                     There is also a lot of text about the fact that due to differences in floorspace/turnover that the two assessments cant be compared. Indeed I note the recent email from Montagu Evans backing this claim and suggesting we are being misleading. I strongly refute that suggestion and would direct you to my objection letter dated 6 September 2011. In this regard it is the case that the assessments can be directly compared as it is the differences in turnover and floorspace that are simply  the differences in the proposal. If they were the same there would be nothing to compare. However the national grid committee report seeks to draw a significant difference in terms of the comparison impact between the two proposals. However in doing so does exactly what is claimed to be misleading. Whilst it is accepted that our comparison floorspace is higher than National Grid it is the case that we have tested the impact using a much higher turnover ratio. We have utilised £6180 per sq.m compared to the national Grid estimate of £4618 per sq.m. A huge difference of 33%. It means that even making an adjustment for the differences in the convenience turnover ratios, the national grid overall turnover ratio for the store is less than ours. If you therefore consider our application represented an under-estimate of the impact (as stated in the National Grid committee report), can you explain why you do not make the same conclusion in relation to the National Grid application. 

 

Again this displays that our application has not been treated fairly.

 

There are many other issues which relate to both the NG application and ours that have not been explained by your department in the last few months. All that I have asked for and would continue to ask for is firstly to understand your position on a number of matters as well as consistency of approach.

 

My client and I are at a loss as to why our application is not being treated in a fair and proper manner by your department and the questions we continually ask for clarification are not being answered.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Regards

 

Alex