Object to Tesco's Plans in Tenbury [again]..

If you value the health of the highstreet in Tenbury then please consider sending-in a planning objection to Tesco's latest plans. It's quick to do and free - just download & print one of the 2x different objection letters [top right on this site/blog]. Add your address and name & date it and then drop it in to either Books, Books, Books or The Little Sweet Shop in Tenbury's High Street before 7th Nov, 2010. We'll do the rest!

Feel free to add your own additional concerns to either of the MS Word objection letters too [but please remember that your comments will have to relate to one or more of the planning criteria submitted by Tesco this time round].

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

This phrase by Mark Twain was widely attributed to refer to Disraeli but if he were alive now then his famous quote might also neatly describe the workings of Tesco's own spin machine in relation to their Tenbury plans.

Last week we ran the story on this blog showing the strange differences between Tesco's original statement of:

"9 Tesco HGV deliveries per week"

~ [to the potential Tenbury Tesco site] and the much higher...

"15 Tesco HGV deliveries per week"

~ [quoted in their latest application documents]. This figure then changed again to...

"17 Tesco HGV deliveries per week"

~ when Tesco reps were asked when at the Pump Rooms on their recent bungled charm offensive. Well the plot thickens.. A source at Tesco Ludlow has looked over the proposed Tesco delivery schedule submitted with the latest Tenbury plans and says that the statistics quoted are "very optimistic". The source adds that there is "no frozen delivery quoted" and that they have one of these a day in addition to Tesco's own fresh and grocery deliveries and that as such this should tally with a Tesco in Tenbury [if it went ahead].

This now adds up to 24 Tesco HGV deliveries per week

~ [not including the various 3rd party deliveries to the site too - which won't all be shared with Spar and Bowketts]. There's massaging of figures evident with the 3rd party delivery numbers too it would seem.. Instead of Tesco's claim of "2 bread deliveries per day" the likelyhood is that it'll be 3 bread deliveries day [different bakeries] as they have at Tesco Ludlow..

Come on Tesco. Give us a break and tell the people of Tenbury the truth for once about the large HGVs that you'll be squeezing across the fragile old Teme Bridge.

Come Clean Tesco About Teme Bridge HGV Deliveries..

There's been much talk of the fragile state of the Teme bridge - both on this and the Tenbury blog. Many people will primarily think this is an issue that threatens the livelihood of the whole town - which I too believe. But.. There are some that also believe that additional potential Tesco HGV deliveries will only aggravate further the stresses on the old bridge - none of which it was originally designed for.

I did a little homework and found that Tesco had been 'revising' their estimates regards potential HGV deliveries over a period of weeks. So just what is the truth? Let's look at the following details and you can make your own minds up..

Scenario 1:
On Wed 15th Sept 2010 the Tenbury Blog article: "Tesco unveil their new plan for Tenbury."said this [this ref seems to have been subsequently deleted]:

"Tesco's say that the store will be serviced by just 9 large lorries a week, plus a number of deliveries by local suppliers, bakery & crisp suppliers."

Allowing for -say- the same amount of third party deliveries that would approximately amount to: 18x HGVs per week of varying sizes. N.B. All coming over the Teme Bridge as stipulated in the revised "Delivery Management Strategy" [date stamped 1st Oct 2010] submitted with the new planning application.

Scenario 2:
The aforementioned Delivery Management Strategy [Fri 1st Oct 2010] stipulates the following:

15x Tesco HGV deliveries over the period of a week [derived from table on page 4].

Plus

"There are expected to be two [Third Party] bread deliveries per day and one milk deliver per day..."* [7 x 3 = 21 HGV's]

Total Approximately: 15 + 21 = 36 large HGV's per week [of varying sizes] over the Teme Bridge.

That's already DOUBLE the original Tesco claim published on the Tenbury Blog on Wed 15th Oct.

Scenario 3:
Tesco resumed their charm offensive on Tenbury on Friday 8th Oct 2010 and hired-out the Pump Rooms. During the day a local businessman asked a Tesco rep how many HGVs would be delivering to the potential store over the Teme Bridge. The answer was as follows:

17x Tesco HGV's per week.

Allowing for Tesco's own statement about 3rd party deliveries again* [21] that now brings us to a total of [17 + 21 = 38 HGVs]:

38 additional LARGE HGVs a week over the Teme Bridge.

Given all the [very valid] concerns about the Teme Bridge's structural integrity and given that we've seen what floods can do to fragile old bridges such as the one in Workington, Cumbria which collapsed into the River Derwent while in spate..

Three resultant questions:

1. Why did Tesco give an original HGV figure [published on the Tenbury blog, wed 15th Sept] half of that quoted in their subsequent plans submitted at the end of September?

2. Given all of the figures quoted above are additional to the HGVs that already rumble over the Teme Bridge [despite their being a Traffic Regulation Order advising them not to]. Why then are we even considering allowing Tesco to bring all of these further large HGVs over our fragile old bridge?

3. After the Workington bridge collapse, Government Advisors said that every bridge in Britain should be assessed. With the Teme Bridge already in a fragile state, already having been closed twice in 2007 due to severe floods and with many more potential large HGVs using it [if Tesco get their way] - when then are we getting our flood structural assessment!?

Concerned Local Businesses & Residents Protest Against Tenbury Tesco Plans

Tesco resumed their charm offensive in Tenbury on friday 8th Oct - hoping to persuade Tenbury locals that their revised plans for a local store made more sense than the ones they were forced to withdraw in the summer. It was interesting to note that the Tesco representatives in the Pump Rooms were kept busy though and clearly earned their pay for the day. When I looked during the 3 occasions in the day I went in, they were almost constantly being buttonholed by irate local people disgruntled by Tesco's plans. When about 30 'TesNO' supporters went in after the above photo was taken, some of the Tesco staff apparently quickly took their name badges off - there's loyalty to the cause [not]. The resultant room full of annoyed local people left them disowning their employers - PR success or PR gaff?

The new plans aren't that dissimilar to the originals and still hang on Tesco's need to demolish the unique old workhouse Infirmary Building adjacent to the River Teme in Tenbury. The clear rejection of this idea by planners was one of the main reasons Tesco withdrew the original plans in the summer. Malvern Hills District Council's perspective on the original plans was quoted in the Shropshire Star 26th Jul 2010 as: “The 19th century building is considered to be too important because it frames views into the former Cattle Market site from both Teme Street and the bridge over the river.”. The Star added in the same article: "Tesco wanted conservation area consent to demolish the Russell Baldwin & Bright building but planning officers decided demolition would harm Tenbury Wells Conservation Area."

The Tenbury 'TesNO' group, a collection of local residents and shop owners were also there to put across their concerns about Tesco's plans for Tenbury. The concerns the group put over to both Tesco and local press were as follows:

• TESCO HGV’S WILL WRECK TEME BRIDGE
According to a Worcester County Council document titled: “Worcestershire’s Bridges Bid for Capital Maintenance Funding” [2006], the Teme Bridge in Tenbury is in a precarious structural state. A 2005 Principal Inspection recommended that “Major Repairs will be required for the Teme Bridge, and these will form a high priority.“ A subsequent inspection by structural engineers Fugro Aperio identified the following: “…The Tenbury Wells bridge, which is to undergo a £1 million scheme [2006] of masonry repairs and concrete strengthening at a future date..."

The only work that is recorded in the former document was in 1995 when steel beams were added to concrete slab sections on the south side of the bridge. This was before the 2005 and 2006 reports AND before the bridge was closed twice when structural damage was suspected during the town’s 2007 floods. No substantial work has been undertaken since 1995 despite the clear findings that it was in a very poor state of repair.

The bridge is a Scheduled Ancient Monument that enjoys the highest protection in the UK for any structure. It’s care is in part monitored by English Heritage’s Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Worcs – Tony Fleming. We have since passed all of the above documents to Tony Fleming urging that the bridge be assessed once more in the light of Tesco wanting to use it as their sole route into the town for their daily HGV traffic. Additionally, the route across the bridge and into Tenbury has a Traffic Regulation Order upon it and already states that it’s “Unsuitable for HGV’s, it would be madness to sanction Tesco to bring more over this bridge.

We maintain that the precarious structural state of the Teme Bridge will be substantially damaged further by Tesco’s potential HGV fleet.

• NEW STORE WILL MEAN 13% - 50% LOSS OF TRADE TO FOOD SHOPS
We’re also very concerned that a 1998 UK Govt Report found that when a large supermarket is built in a Market Town Centre or just outside that other highstreet food shops could lose between 13 and 50% of their existing trade. This can’t be good news for Tenbury – where shops are only just beginning to recover from closure after the floods and during the present economic slowdown.

We maintain that building a Tesco supermarket either in or just outside of Tenbury Wells will severely impact the health of our already fragile highstreet – causing shops to close.
* Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, October 1998. The Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres.

• MEDIA EXPOSE TESCO DIRTY TRICKS
We don’t want the sort of business setting up in Tenbury that has been highlighted in UK press articles for forging their own letters of development support* and creating their own bogus statistics to try to convince locals that they needed a supermarket.**

We don’t want to be the next town on the receiving end of Tesco's dirty tricks.
* http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tesco-dirty-tricks-and-the-battle-over-a-new-store-in-rural-norfolk-2023130.html

** http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209095/Tesco-guilty-of-using-bogus-statistics-convince-town-needed-supermarket.html

• NEW STORE WON’T BENEFIT TENBURY FINANCIALLY
Finally, Tenbury Wells won’t benefit from a Tesco Supermarket being built on land that is situated at the heart of our community and which should be used to effectively support that community. A leading study* has found that £1 spent in a local shop puts twice as much money back into the local economy against £1 spent in a large supermarket. Instead, most of the money Tesco will potentially make out of Tenbury will be siphoned-off out of town – leaving our town no better off. Neither do we believe that potential Tesco customers are going to want to leave their chilled and frozen goods purchased in store within their cars while they walk off into Tenbury’s highstreet. Instead it is more likely that customers will want to get their purchased goods home as soon as possible so that they don’t spoil.

We maintain that a Tesco Supermarket in or nearby to Tenbury will make the town worse off financially and deplete highstreet trade.

* New Economics Foundation Study [NEF].

Tenbury's Teme Bridge in Crisis?

There's been much talk about the state of the Teme Bridge of recent. There's facts and figures available online if you know where to search for them and there's reports of WCC Councillors stating that there's nothing wrong with the Teme Bridge too at local council meets. Tesco in their revised plans want to use it as their sole access to their potential store for their 44 tonne HGV fleet [plus misc other HGV suppliers] - potentially putting the existing structure under greater threat. Being inquisitive, I decided to go to the bridge, have a look and see for myself the state it is in [not that I'm any expert, but I know a big fracture when I see one!].

So here's what I found..

Basic structural repairs to concrete sections.

A sizeable fracture all the way through one of the old concrete sheaths of the bridge.

The same crack showing it running up to road level - also showing slippage and offsetting of the right hand section on concrete sheathing.

Another substantial fracture running diagonally through the old concrete sheathing.

So what are the facts available? Well there's a document that WCC have taken offline but good 'ol Google had already made an HTML copy of called " Worcestershire's Bid for Capital Maintenance Funding" [2006]. In it in section 4 it discusses the background of the bridge and the findings of a principal inspection or [PI] in 2005 as follows:

History:

"Teme Bridge carries the A4112 over the River Teme in Tenbury Wells, linking the town itself to the A456, which provides the strategic route to Worcester and Kidderminster to the East, and Ludlow and Leominster via the A49 to the West. The alternatives routes in Tenbury from this directions involve narrow and hilly roads that are particularly unsuitable for the Heavy Goods Vehicles bringing goods to the town centre businesses.

The original bridge dates back to the Fourteenth Century, although the southern three arches were re-built in the Eighteenth Century. In 1815 the northern three spans were widened to a design by Thomas Telford, and further widening was undertaken in 1868. In 1908 reinforced concrete extensions were constructed on both elevations of the bridge to a design by L.G. Mouchel and Partners."

So [and I'm just summarising the above], it's a very old bridge which benefitted from the brilliance of Thomas Telford on rebuild and has since had concrete extensions to help widen it. Also quoted in the same document is the following assessment in 2005 of it's structural integrity:

Bridge damage:

"A Principal Inspection (PI) in October 2005 identified further problems with the bridge, notably erosion of masonry, cracking and displacements of stonework, water penetration of the reinforced concrete extensions, and spalling of the concrete.

Additionally, the south-east wingwall is showing signs of movement, probably due to settlement of the fill behind the abutment. Given the above it is likely that major repairs will be required to Teme Bridge, and these will form a high priority due to the need to maintain a reasonable level of access to Tenbury itself. Further site investigations are underway to establish the interface between the original arch structure and the concrete extension and to allow a full assessment of the bridge to be completed."

So, diligently further professional inspections did indeed take place by a specialist structural engineering company called Fugro Aperio. These people used the latest advanced tech to look at the bridge in various ways and concluded in their report "Fugro Aperio's 'Inner Vision' Averts Traffic Chaos" [downloadable at: http://www.fugro-aperio.com/services/buildingsstructures/data/PDF069TemeBridgeRVI.PDF ]:

"The level of details provided by Fugro Aperio's surveys has helped in designing the most appropriate, most cost-effective and least disruptive scheme of repair works for the Tenbury Wells bridge, which is to undergo a £1 million scheme [2006] of masonry repairs and concrete strengthening at a future date."

To me, the evidence above doesn't sound good news.. It sounds like there are serious structural issues with the Teme Bridge which [in the Fugro Aperio 2006 report] were going to cost a goodly amount of money to put right. So what happened after that point? Well some basic structural enhancement has taken place in the concrete sections since 2006 [see pic top] but this doesn't look [or sound] like the quoted [2006] million pounds worth of repairs. Take into consideration too that the bridge had to be closed on at least 2 occasions around 2007 when we had serious flooding of the river area - causing extra stresses on the old structure on top of the existing cracks and settling. Add to that the slow but sure extra traffic build up over the years and numerous lost 44 tonne arctic lorries relying on their satnavs picking their way through Tenbury and over the bridge out to a wider road.. It would be reasonable to conclude that the stresses and strains on the old bridge in recent years have increased dramatically.

Tenbury - "Unsuitable for HGV's"
Now we already know that the route through Tenbury has a traffic order on it that renders it "Unsuitable for HGV's" - there's the blue signs on the Burford side of the bridge to prove it. This is however only 'advisory' and not mandatory - i.e. it's not obligatory to HGV drivers to take it into account. But.. The Teme bridge -is- a Scheduled Ancient Monument [SAM] too. To put this into some kind of context, the only other [SAM] in the Tenbury immediate area is the ancient Norman Motte or 'Tump' in the field on the Burford side of the bridge. Even the giant, world renowned IK Brunel-designed Clifton Suspension bridge near Bristol isn't a SAM. This probably helps explain how important this fragile old bridge is in the great scheme of things.

Teme Bridge - Scheduled Ancient Monument
SAM's enjoy the greatest protection that a structure can have in the UK - development and potential uses of them are closely monitored by the Inspector of Ancient Monuments - a UK statutory body. Any substantial change of use or scaling-up of use of them must be ran by the inspector and commented on. Well guess what? I spoke with the inspector for the Worcester region - in which the Teme Bridge is covered. He shall remain nameless but did stress that he had raised substantial concerns about the usage of the bridge when Tesco applied the first time round. When I explained that Tesco had been given until the end of September 2010 to put in a revised bid he stated that 'there's 2 days until the end of the month but We haven't been re-consulted by Tesco'. So maybe Tesco did consult in the remaining 2x days of Sept 2010 but [if they did] then they would have received the same comment I heard which was "We're not sure if the bridge can take the hit" [of the additional Tesco HGV traffic to the store]. He recommended then that the bridge would need a study of some kind to see if it was capable of catering for this.

Worcester County Council Denial
Worcester County Council's perspective on the bridge seems to have been made clear in Feb 2010 when Ken Pollock a Worcs County Councillor was on record at a Tenbury Town Council meet* as saying: [that there is] "no significant damage to the bridge" and that it needs "just remedial repairs" which will be carried out "in 2011/12". Now to me, there is a very big difference between £1 million pounds worth of work in 2006 and "no significant damage" in early 2010. Where did all the damage go then?
[* ref from blog comment the "Unsuitable for HGV's" previous blog entry from an indivudual who attended and noted during that session].

In summary
So to summarise and bring together.. The Teme Bridge is a Scheduled Ancient Monument - protected to the max in respect if it's usage and maintenance. It's also a bridge that has had numerous reports levelled at it by professional bodies who have estimated [2006] that £1 million pounds would need to be spent to secure and maintain it. Small amounts of remedial work have been done since to help secure it but certainly not the £1 million pounds worth quoted in 2006. UK statuary bodies are questioning the logic of scaling up the amount of HGV traffic on the old bridge and recommending feasibility studies. Worcester County Council representatives are telling the people of Tenbury that the bridge is in actual fact 'fine' and needs little or no work.. The route through Tenbury is signed "Unsuitable for HGV's"…

Add Tesco's HGV's to the mix?
Square that if you can with Tesco wanting to bring their fleet of 44 tonne articulated lorries over the decaying, fragile old protected bridge. Ignore for now the additional suppliers such as Wiseman Dairies etc who will also want to send articulated lorries to the store [not to mention the extra customer traffic squeezing across to the store too].. This is a massive additional hit on an old bridge that is already well overdue major maintenance work. Worcester County Council clearly have a penny-pinching policy that means that the monies that were recommended to be spent on the bridge in 2006 have only been dealt with in a cursory way to date - leaving substantial structural damage existing. Clearly there's much more substantial work to be done still - some has been suggested in WCC docs to commence 2012,. Until that point though we're left with a very fragile [and clearly structurally-compromised] Schedule Ancient Monument that was never designed to carry fleets of additional HGV lorries.

Q. So what at the end of the day is important in this scenario? Is it preservation of our rare and unique old bridge that helps lend so much character to the town for future generations? Or is it to allow Tesco the big multinational corporate to make maximum profit out of the land adjacent to it? If the latter scenario is allowed [given their desire to use the bridge as sole access] it would both make a mockery of both the bridge's nationally important heritage status and the existing Traffic Regulation Order rendering the route "Unsuitable for HGV's" in one shot.