Country's first friendly store for elderly is stalled
Jan 31 2009 by Amy Hunt, The Journal
PLANS for the country’s first pensioner-friendly supermarket due to be built in Newcastle have stalled.
Tesco bosses are going back to the drawing board with plans for a store at the site of Newcastle General Hospital.
The supermarket chain, Newcastle University and Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, put in an application for the Campus for Ageing and Vitality.
It was due to be go before the city council’s development control committee next Friday but has been deferred.
It is thought the proposals were likely to be turned down because of concerns such as the size and location of the shop, traffic and air pollution, and the effect it could have on small businesses.
The Stop Fenham Tesco protest group is urging the council to reopen talks with residents while plans are revised.
Around 600 objections have already been received. The store was to feature extra wide aisles, anti-slip flooring and shopping trolleys with magnifying glasses, locking wheels and built-in chairs to rest tired feet.
The group’s Kate Hodgkinson said: “This feels to us like a strategic waste of the council and everyone else’s time since they left it until the 11th hour to defer.
“We would have liked the application to go to committee because we believe it would not have gone through.”
David Slater, Newcastle city council’s executive director for environment and regeneration, said: “The application has been deferred to enable further discussion between the parties. Our ambition is to create a development which helps us to realise our ambition for a Science City in Newcastle as well as maintaining a real amenity for the community.
“We are committed to the development and support a retail-led element on the site and employment uses.”
A spokeswoman from the campus development team said: “This is a vital project which will create hundreds of new jobs as well as more retail choice and new business opportunities.
“Although the deferment of the application is somewhat frustrating it does mean we can use this extra time to continue working with the council to resolve any outstanding issues.”
Newcastle Central MP Jim Cousins said: “If the City Council was going to turn this application down why didn’t they do it three years ago when we could have worked out an alternative strategy.
“The Tesco development was only a small part of the redevelopment which now can’t go ahead. We have a serious crisis about the future of hospital services in the West End of Newcastle and I want to talk to the Strategic Health Authority and Foundation Trust to see if we can get this redevelopment back on track.”
