Green up Newbury Retail Park
Town council's proviso to application for extra car parking
NEWBURY Retail Park is an “ugly place” that should not be promoted as a shopping destination, according to one town councillor.
Martha Vickers made her comments during a discussion about whether to object to plans for 25 car parking spaces outside Unit 9, which is currently occupied by Homebase.
As reported in the Newbury Weekly News recently, the store is closing on September 5 and being replaced with an as yet unknown retailer.
It has been widely speculated that either Lidl or Aldi will move into the unit.
At a Newbury Town Council meeting on Monday, July 15, councillors agreed not to object to the 25 parking spaces – but only on condition that around half of them are reserved for ‘greener’ forms of transport, including bicycles, electric vehicles and buses.
During the debate, Mrs Vickers (Lib Dem, West Fields), said: “I don’t go to the retail park. I think it is an ugly place.
“You see queues of people going down the road on a Sunday as if it’s their destination for a day out.
“I think we should be encouraging shopping in the town centre.
“I am really not comfortable with enhancing this destination for shopping when we have probably got equally-good shops in the town centre that are accessible without cars.”
However, her Lib Dem colleague Roger Hunneman (Wash Common) disagreed, saying the council needed to be “pragmatic”.
He said: “I don’t see any harm in adequate parking provision.
“We must be pragmatic. It does get crowded. If Lidl is going there, it is going to get even more crowded.
“People will want to shop there and probably not carry all of their bags home.
“There’s being green and there’s being practical.”
Conservative councillor Jeff Beck (Con, Clay Hill) said: “On a very regular basis that car park is almost full and you get tailbacks on the road and even the A339 sometimes.
“If we can reduce that sort of situation then I fully support this.”
However, Steve Masters (Green, Speenhamland) said: “The owners of the retail park or that particular unit need to think about the alternatives.
“I would say they need to come up with something a bit more original than just more parking spaces.”
Lib Dem Tony Vickers (Wash Common), chairing the meeting, said that the council had “very different policies in place” when it approved plans for the retail park.
He reminded members: “We are not trying to retrospectively trying to change the entire travel habits of everybody that wants to use the retail park, we just have an opportunity here, in one corner of the retail park, to do the best that we can.
“We are putting down a marker for the case worker to talk green to the applicant and I think that’s all we can do.”
Mr Vickers added: “It is about time something is done up there, because I can’t go up there with my bike and feel safe getting anywhere near a parking space.
“If you want to shop in the town centre, it’s fine. But if you want to shop in the retail park, basically you can’t.
“It is like taking your life in your hands.”
Mr Hunneman said: “Currently buses don’t go into the retail park.
“They probably can’t because of the way it’s laid out, but it would be nice if they could.”
Billy Drummond (Lib Dem, East Fields) said: “You say about the buses – I live up there, it’s my ward.
“There must be four or five buses up there an hour to town.
“There’s hardly ever anyone on them.
“They don’t use them, people just don’t want buses.
“That bus runs 90-per-cent empty all the time.
“There are about two or three people, if you’re lucky, who use the bus and that’s even on a wet day.”
Councillors unanimously voted in favour of not objecting to the application as long as the applicant reserves around half of the spaces for alternative, green transport.
