Tesco tries again at Tolworth
Invitations to comment on 'clean slate' development plan.
Every aspect of the old plan, which included 600 flats, 6,000sqm megastore and a bridge over the A3, has been scrapped ahead of the first of its working group meetings today.
It has invited everyone who made a public comment on the old plan to be part of the working group, whose number includes members of Tolworth Residents Against Over-development (Trod).
Read more:
The Surrey Comet By posting content on Surbiton.com, you agree to adhere to the following guidelines.
- Your username and password must only be used by you, keep them safe. If a posting is made using your username and password it will be considered to have been posted by you. If you have a friend who wants to use our site and post messages on the site, show them how to register.
- Be courteous at all times, inciting racial hatred, posting abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory, libellous or sexually explicit material or any material that is found to be offensive is not acceptable and we may suspend your username and password.
- Retaliating to offensive posts causes more problems for other users on the discussion boards. Just report such messages to us using the Feedback link which is available at the top of every page or the 'report this' link associated with individual postings. We will act on every report we receive.
- Please respect other people's work and do not post material that infringes copyright.
- Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law. You should only post material that you know to be public knowledge. If you have any doubts do not post it on the site.
- Never attempt to gain unauthorised access to any area of the site. This is known as hacking and is illegal.
- Content posted represents the opinions of the author, and does not represent the opinions of Surbiton.com or its affiliates and has not been approved or issued by Surbiton.com. You should be aware that the other participants are strangers to you and may make statements which may be misleading, deceptive or wrong.
- Spoofing or posing as another user is unacceptable. Anonymous users' postings should always be considered with suspicion.
- Help keep Surbiton.com a safe place for information and opinion. Please alert us of any anti-social behaviour as described above.
Surbiton.com 1998 - 2024
Comments
Most people want the store, albeit a scaled down-version for Tolworth + leisure centre. Rich people in the area (who funnily enough are usually most the skilled in running committees and campaigning) drive in their BMWs to Kingston Waitrose for their groceries and then whinge because the man on the street wants a better alternative to fried chicken and doner kebabs. For most people, New Malden Tesco is not nearby - not unless you walk up the A3 - which i wouldn't recommend to anyone.
the silent majority want the tesco
says who? None of my friends r neighbours have shown any support.
And some of them use Tesco at New Malden, and others get teh Tesco home delivery.
Nobody wants the extra traffic this development would generate.
Or,to appease the Tesco haters,what about a real Flagship Aldi/Netto/Lidl?
As long as something gets done to improve the blighted Broadway.
Aldi Netto or Lidl? Let's not make Tolworth any more chavvy than it already is!
I think an aldi would do well at Tolworth broadway, or surbiton town centre.
Their stuff is of a much higher quality than lidl, but prices are broadly in line.
Its a big pity that their application for a store on the Ewell by-pass was turned down.
Nobody's objecting to the brand name of the store - its the extra traffic that any shopping centre development would generate.
When this site was sold to Tesco, it was accompanied by a planning brief that stated loud and clear that the site was not suitable for retail use.
Top of the list of reasons why was the extra traffic it would generate.
That reason will never go away, regardless of what store locates there, or what sweetners Tesco try to bribe the council with.
You have to laugh at the idea of Tesco offering a leisure centre, ie somewhere for people to get fit and healthy, when their store will deliver extra air pollution at one of London's already most polluted sites.
The last readings taken a year or two ago showed that the Tolworth junction already exceeded EU air safety levels.
Adding to it would be madness on health grounds alone, never mind the guaranteed extra congestion.
Extra traffic means extra customers,goods and services to the area.
If the roads are sufficiently improved to allow through traffic to flow and for shopping traffic to access free/subsidised parking then we may see some real regeneration of the blighted area.
Given that the government is determined to tax folks out of the more polluting vehicles the pollution levels will reduce anyway but by the simple but expensive means of a flyover for the Ewell Road/Broadway traffic circle and reshaping the A3 to allow easy entry and exit to the shopping complex everybody is a winner.
TOLWORTH should be flattened, its a dump!
Funny how everyone living in TOLWORTH puts SURBITON down as their address
I think that is actually correct - the KT5 and KT6 postcodes are Surbiton, and Tolworth is a part of that - showing the address as 1 The Broadway, Tolworth, Surbiton KT6 etc is therefore right.
I agree that a lot of people choose to miss the Tolworth part out completely, but who can blame them - decades of under investment has meant that Tolworth has effectively been left to rot. It is a disgrace, and it needs something to sort it out. Whether or not Tesco is the correct answer is another matter.
Not wanting to be exclusive (everyone's welcome to contribute to Surbiton.com), but South of the join of Red Lion Road and Thornhill Road is not officially Surbiton but designated 'South of the Borough'. The other half of Tolworth is in Surbiton.
The map on this site shows the official Surbiton border:
http://www.surbiton.com/map
Surbiton.com webmaster
Now can all you people who bought your houses cheaper because you bought them in TOLWORTH, please refrain from putting SURBITON down as your address, just that it's lowering the tone of Surby a bit
;@)
As usual, different institutions have different views on this. As you say, RBK considers Surbiton and Tolworth to be separate entities, but the Post Office considers them one and the same.
I personally think that it is nice for both of these areas to retain their own, separate identities. Tolworth will find it hard to grow and improve if all of it's residents want to be seen as living in Surbiton.
Surbiton is a 'nicer' area on the whole, but the address does not mean everything - there are some really nice roads just off Tolworth Broadway, far better than some of the areas in Surbiton itself. People tend to generalise about areas far too much.
The variety of shops in Tolworth is already in decline, only recently we saw the closure of the local hardware shop and now the only pub in Tolworth has closed and will be turned into flats so I cannot see Tesco being the cause.
The real issue with The Broadway is the central reservation and the fact that it looks nothing like a high street. Should we not be exploring alternative solutions to routing the traffic through th eBroadway so that it beomes more pedestrian friendly, we may then see an increase in local trade and traders.
Much better to use it for Industrial development then?
"The land was sold to tesco with the explicit planning guidance that it was not suited to retail development"
That says it all really. Why the hell did they sell it to Tesco then.
I think the question should be why the hell did Tesco buy it then?
My guess? They must have thought that at some stage they could trample over planning guidelines and develop a hypermarket there anyway.
You can't stop somebody from buying any site really, all you can do is reiterate restrictions on its use at point of sale. Buyer beware,etc. Tesco's fault and problem if you ask me.
Ah the luddites are alive and well in Tolworth
This sounds like disaster for the area as Tesco will happily sit on this land forever and talk to any number of well meaning folks until they achieve exactly what they want,thats why they are one of the most successful companies in the world.
The Broadway will stagnate as few new shops will open with the uncertainty of the site hanging over the area for the next 10/15 years.
RBK must negotiate with Tesco for a site that can be developed to satisfy every party and result in planning gain for the Borough an impasse is in no ones interest,sadly this is unlikely to happen and Tolworth will miss out on a chance to regenerate.
I think i moved back to Conservative Pimlico just in time.
So thats it then, just let Tesco steamroller over all planning laws & overwhelming local opposition? leaving the locals to suffer from increased traffic pollution and congestion?
With thinking like that, the tories in pimlico are welcome to you.
The land was sold to tesco with the explicit planning guidance that it was not suited to retail development.
If they fail for a third time, they will never get permission, and rightly so. Once this happens, the future of the broadway is as secure as it will ever be.
Tesco can then sit on their land for as long as they like - it will never be a hypermarket as they wish.
Post new comment