The Bradley Stoke Journal

A remarkable U-turn by Tesco public affairs consultant Dan Bramwell has seen the supermarket group agree to hold a public consultation over the naming of Bradley Stoke’s new town centre currently under construction at Savages Wood Road. The move comes less than two weeks after Mr Bramwell stated on Radio Bristol that “having a competition now would delay the building of the town centre”. In the radio interview he also stated that a decision to call the development “The Brooks Centre” had been made back in March, when Bradley Stoke Town Council had been informed that no competition to choose the name would now take place, despite an earlier promise in a Tesco press release.

In a fumbled attempt at embarrassing Tesco, the Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) planning committee had unanimously objected to a planning application by Tesco for advertising signage that sported the “Brooks Centre” name. In doing so they overlooked the fact that South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC) consultation period for the application had already expired. The planning committee’s grounds for objection served only to demonstrate their ignorance of planning law, the grounds being dismissed later by SGC planning officials as “irrelevant”.

In an address to Thursday evening’s Special Council Meeting, Mr Bramwell confirmed that the town centre development is “on schedule” for opening “later this year”. Marketing of the retail and office units is well underway, he added. However he also made several references to the imapct of the “economic slowdown”, which could be taken to mean that the developers are struggling to find tenants for some of the units. No mention was made by Mr Bramwell of any progress made in agreeing a joint BSTC/SGC drop-in centre in the new town centre.

Tesco’s local marketing team is due to take over the reins from Mr Bramwell in six weeks time.

The public competition to choose the name of the development will be launched early next week. The judging panel will be formed of two representatives from Tesco and two fom BSTC, with the winner receiving a £50 voucher and the right to nominate a local school to receive a personal computer donated by Tesco.

The Special Meeting had earlier held a fractious discussion about the Council’s ongoing dispute with Northavon Bowls Club over their rental agreement at Baileys Court. Unusually, members of the public had not been given the chance to speak at the start of the meeting and chair Julian Barge was adamant that the discussion should exclude the views of the assembled group of over 30 onlookers, including many members of the Bowls Club. Councillor Mark Forsyth began the meeting by summarising the discussions that had taken place between the Council’s working group and the bowlers. Expressions of disapproval from the audience eventually resulted in the meeting being adjourned for the Bowls Club to appoint a representative to speak on their behalf.

Once the meeting resumed (but still officially in an “adjourned” state), Brian Newland of the Bowls Club refuted many of the allegations made by Councillors earlier in the discussion and repeated calls for an independent arbitrator to be brought in.

With the meeting then officially reconvened, the Council resolved by a majority verdict to inform the Bowls Club that no change would be made to the “originally proposed agreement” (incorporating an 8% annual increase) and that the Club be given a further ten days to accept it or “that would be it”.

The Bradley Stoke Journal has learned that tonight’s Special Meeting of Bradley Stoke Town Council [agenda] has already attracted the attention of the local media. A source within Northavon Bowls Club has told The Journal that a reporter and cameraman from the Bristol Evening Post will be at the meeting. The source also revealed that the Club has been asked to take part in a discussion on Radio Bristol tomorrow (Friday) morning at 8:15am.

The Special Meeting, which takes place at 7:30pm in the Jubilee Centre, Savages Wood Road, has been called to discuss the ongoing bowls dispute and issues surrounding the new town centre development.

Tesco representative Dan Bramwell is expected to attend for the town centre discussion.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) has approved a “controversial” planning application for advertising signage in Bradley Stoke’s new town centre development. As reported in The Journal’s article on 30^th April, Bradley Stoke Town Council’s (BSTC) planning committee unanimously agreed to oppose the application at a meeting on 23^rd April, but the committee apparently overlooked the fact that SGC’s consultation period for the application had already expired on 15^th April.

An online objection was lodged by The Town Council on 28^th April, followed by a written objection (also received by SGC on 28^th April). However, a decision to recommend approval of the application had already been made by the SGC case officer with the issuing of a Circulated Schedule Report on 25^th April. The final decision to approve was made on 2^nd May after no requests were made by SGC councillors (or BSTC) to “call in” the application for a site visit or for determination by the SGC planning committee.

Quite why none of the SGC councillors representing Bradley Stoke chose to “call in” the application remains a mystery, particularly when four of these councillors are also members of the Town Council, including two (John Ashe and Sarah Pomfret) who sit on the BSTC planning committee that opposed the application.

The new town centre development is one of two topics to be discussed at a Special Meeting of Bradley Stoke Town Council on Thursday (8^th May). The ongoing dispute between the Town Council and Northavon Bowls Club over the Baileys Court rental agreement is also on the agenda. The press and public are invited to attend the meeting, although it is noted that recent deliberations on both of these matters have taken place “in camera” (i.e. the press and public have been asked to leave the room during the discussions).

Tesco has released detailed drawings showing the internal layout of the new Tesco Extra store currently under construction within Bradley Stoke’s new town centre development. The plans have been on display in the entrance of the existing Tesco store since late last week.

The new store, which will have a floorspace nearly two-and-a-half times that of the existing store, is due to open in “late autumn”. The steel framework of the new store is already in place and the roof and side walls are currently being added.

Retail space in the new store will be split over two floors. The ground floor will provide a range of goods and services similar to that available in the existing store, but with a wider choice of product lines. One new feature will be an opticians, located towards the rear of the ground floor. A “travel money pod” is also listed.

The upper (mezzanine) salesfloor, occupying only about one third of the store footprint (the remainder being given over to storage and offices) will be devoted to non-food items. Principal product groups on this floor are listed as clothing, electrical and home entertainment. Dedicated areas for products such as laptops, cameras, MP3 players and SatNav units can be made out in the plans.

New services advertised on posters in the car park of the existing store include a Tesco Direct desk (acting as a contact point for the supermarket group’s catalogue sales operation) and photo-processing.

More town centre news (including maps, plans, images and press releases) can be found in our dedicated New Town Centre pages, accessible from the sidebar of this website.

With the “Battle of the Bowls” seemingly locked in stalemate, Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) last week opened up a new line of conflict, with the issuing of a press release related to a planning application for advertising signs at the new town centre. The opponents this time are not a group of elderly residents frustrated at the imposition of staggering rental increases on their bowling green, but the mighty supermarket chain Tesco (2007 profit: £2.864 billion).

Last week’s press release came the morning after the monthly Planning Committee meeting on Wednesday night, at which a planning application (PT08/0781/ADV) from Tesco had been discussed. We are told the committee voted unanimously to oppose the application on the grounds that:

• The logo shown on the proposed signs is too similar to that of South Gloucestershire Council.
• The name “The Brooks Centre” (chosen by Tesco and also shown on the proposed signs) is similar to that of the Brook Way Activity Centre, located some way from the town centre.

The press release goes on to express the Council’s displeasure that Tesco did not consult the community in choosing a name for the new town centre, with Councillor John Ashe quoted as saying that local school children had been promised a competition to gather names.

The Council’s comments follow news that Tesco has chosen to call the development “The Brooks Centre”, without consulting local people.

Research by The Journal has pinpointed a Planning Committee meeting on 16^th May 2007, attended by Tesco’s media relations consultant Dan Bramwell, as being crucial to the issues involved. The minutes of this meeting, in a section headed “Naming the New Town Centre”, are as follows:

“Mr Bramwell was keen to involve the community and sought ideas as to how this might be achieved. In discussion it was agreed that Bradley Stoke Matters should be asked to play a major role and Tesco would also prepare A5 flyers with architect’s pictures on one side and competition details on the reverse. The overall winner would have a personal prize and be invited to nominate one of the Town’s schools to receive a further award, both to be provided by Tesco, subject to their confirmation.”

Radio Bristol featured the row on Friday morning, with Councillor Robert Jones representing the Council and Dan Bramwell the views of Tesco. Councillor Jones described the chosen name as “heartless and soulless” and referred to a press release issued in December 2007 (actually it was 30^th November) in which Tesco promised to hold a competition to select the name. Mr Bramwell denied that a promise had been made (he seemed to be unaware of the content of the Tesco press release), although he acknowledged that a competition had been discussed.

Mr Bramwell also claimed that he had contacted BSTC on 17^th March 2008 to inform them that a decision had been made by Tesco and there would consequently be no competition. He also stated that the previously discussed (but not promised) competition would have been for the whole community and not just for schoolchildren (this point is confirmed by the minutes of the Council meeting). To stage a competition now would “delay the building of the town centre”, he added.

BBC Online also covered the dispute in an article whose first sentence read: “Supermarket giant Tesco is being accused of breaking promises to school pupils in a row over a new store”.

In later developments, The Journal has discovered that South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC) consultation period for the planning application closed on 15^th April. This would appear to mean that the objections raised on 23^rd April by BSTC cannot be considered by the SGC planning department. A BSTC spokesperson denied this would be the case, saying that “SGC will include our submissions in their deliberations provided they arrive before the appropriate meeting”. We’re not so sure this is the case and it was interesting to see that a Circulated Schedule Report appeared on the SGC website on 25^th April stating that “no response” has been received from BSTC and recommending that the planning application be approved. In any case, it is likely that BSTC’s objections will be deemed irrelevant, as the exact details of text and images displayed on advertising signs does not generally require specific approval. Target date for final approval is given on the SGC website as 2^nd May.

The Journal Comments:

The fact that this matter has flared into a very public spat between BSTC and Tesco is very concerning. Whilst there can be no doubt that Tesco did indeed promise a competition for the name of the new town centre, it is misleading of the Council to claim that the competition was to have been for schoolchildren - this appears to be a deliberate misreprentation of the truth intended to sensationalise the issue.

The minutes of last year’s planning meeting clearly state that BSTC and Tesco agreed to co-operate in the running of the competition, but it appears that the Council has done absolutely nothing and simply sat on its hands, waiting for Tesco to drive things forward. Why, when nothing had been heard early into 2008, didn’t the Council contact Tesco to find out what was going on? And why was there no reaction from BSTC when they received news from Tesco on 17^th March that the competition had been abandoned?

Here at The Journal we have grave concerns as to whether the residents of Bradley Stoke are going to get any non-retail community facilities at all in our new town centre. As discussed in our “Has a Council presence been shelved” article of 23^rd March, we are particularly concerned about the lack of news about progress on the provision of a council drop-in centre in the development. BSTC have refused to comment and SGC have only been able to confirm that “a combined council drop-in centre remains in the plans”. We would like to see evidence that both Councils are being proactive in pursuing the necessary discussions and not simply sitting on their hands as BSTC have done over the naming issue. Failure to act now may result in Tesco letting the unit allocated for the drop-in centre to a commercial tenant instead.

Local website sadlybroke got very excited on Friday, when they “revealed” sight of the Tesco press release in which the promise of a naming competition was made. Of course, the “revelation” was nothing of the sort for readers of The Journal, who have had access to the press release in our dedicated New Town Centre pages since 17^th February. Our “New town centre is The Brooks” article on 10^th April drew attention to the promise in connection with our discovery that “The Brooks” name was being used in commercial marketing literature for the centre.

Bradley Stoke’s new town centre, currently under construction around the existing Tesco store in Savages Wood Road, is being marketed to potential tenants as “The Brooks Centre, Bradley Stoke”. The “Brooks” label, pertaining to the three brooks that run through the town, was thought until now to be a provisional name for the development, used only within design and planning circles.

Bradley Stoke Town Council are known to be unhappy with the name, citing possible confusion with other similarly-named amenities within the town, such as the Brook Way Activity Centre.

In a 2007 press release, Tesco announced that they would be “launching a competition to find a name (for the new centre) … early in the New Year (2008)”.

Click on the thumbnail image above to view the front page of the commercial prospectus for the centre. The complete prospectus can be found on the Alder King website [warning: large download, 2.43MB, PDF].