Personally I am pro a new supermarket because the town desperately needs more people to help support what shops we have left: I see the coffee bar flavours (in the High Street close to Clears) has closed down - very suddenly judging by the fact that all the tables are laid ready for business...sad.
Pepin
Flavour was fully open and trading yesterday when I walked past. Just because a shop is closed one day it doesn't necessarily mean it's closed down for good - definitely doesn't warrant the silly dramatic post above!
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't you read the notice in the window stating that the lease had been terminated?
ReplyDeleteI promise you that I would never deliberately lie about such a serious matter.
Pepin
The proposal by MVDC will be yet another nail in the coffin of Dorking Town Centre.
ReplyDeleteFirstly as it will take so long to come to a real, practical and urgent plan to revitalise the town centre.
These plans and decisions are being made by people who have no experience of the real world of business and that speed is the essence of success.
This plan is about making money for MVDC not about Dorking neglect.
This superstore plan is not in anyway part of the town centre.
Would you leave your car in its carpark and walk up to the town centre ??????.
Leslie Gilbert
Further to my blog about Flavours being closed. Certainly when I saw this it was about mid-week and it was closed with a notice in the window stating that the landlord had terminated the lease and changed the locks.
ReplyDeleteHowever, great news! Either a mistake was made or a deal has been struck and Flavours is once again open! I am delighted and I hope it stays open successfully for a long time to come.
Pepin
I just don't understand why we need another supermarket....I know of no other town which has 3 supermarkets all within walking distance from each other. Why on earth do we need a fourth? It's ridiculous - where is the common sense? Of course it won't bring people into the town - it will just bring more traffic into town. Dorking consists of one Main High Street/South Street, and the lovely West Street in terms of shops. Those two roads already house Waitrose, M&S and Sainsbury - how ludicrous to suggest that we need another!
ReplyDeleteDorking definitely needs another superstore/supermarket. M&S and Waitrose only cater to the wealthy members of the community whilst Sainsburys is an absolute joke - it is very cramped, out of stock of most of the staple items like bread and milk. A superstore on the outskirts would be great for the residents as it would offer a cheaper alternative with plenty of parking. As for the town centre it has been dying for years and years and the range of shops on offer is pathetic. We have more charity shops, hairdressers and antique shops per square mile than in the entire UK. So bring on the superstore as the hours of the present supermarkets are completely inadequate for 21st century shopping.
ReplyDeleteKnow It All Nigel.
A new decent upmarket supermarket would be great, especially if it doesn't have parking fees
ReplyDeleteMuch of what Leslie Gilbert says is true; almost certainly MVDC will move staggeringly slowly because that seems to be the only speed they know.
ReplyDeleteHowever I disagree with Mr Gilbert's assertion that an edge of town supermarket would be "another nail in the coffin of Dorking town centre", Cobham, Horsham and Guildford, to name but three nearby towns, all have large edge of town supermarkets. They seem to thrive and I fail to see why first class retailers such as Mr Gilbert have anything to fear. The combination of a good supermarket (wherever it's located) and excellent retailers, and Dorking does have some very good shops, create a great attraction fom the villages, some of them are very large, around the town. Currently most of the villagers I know go elsewhere to shop because of the lack of a good supermarket.
I am not knocking Waitrose, Sainsburys or M&S -though the latter really isn't a supermarket - it's a very good grocery department offering a good range of products at premium prices. Dorking's Waitrose and Sainsburys are both blessed with excellent staff but the stores are very small and crowded.
Perhaps next May/June we can get rid of some of the pretty useless councillors MVDC seems to have acquired.
Pepin
I really do think that Dorking would benefit from an Aldi at the Curis Road site. It is a reasonably priced store and it doesn't have to be monsterous in size like an Asda or Sainsburys would be. I really feel we are ideally situated to have an Aldi Since Leatherhead has Lidl which is thriving and our nearest Aldi is eirher Portslade or East Grinstead.
ReplyDeleteHowever having cosulted the Aldi web site which states that they target areas of 10,000 plus population (Leatherhead has under this !) and Dorking has 17000 apparently I thought goody! and proceded to ring the appropriate property department to see if they had considered Dorking as a potential site. I was then told that they look at population areas over 35ooo! so Dorking wouldnt be eligible! but they are forgeting that we have outlying areas that use the Chalkpit Lane road to go in and out of Dorking and could surely push the footfall up!
Doest anybody else here think this is a good idea?
Much as I sympathise with Leslie Gilbert's pessimism, I wonder how many local people do not do any shopping in Dorking at all because of the lack of convenient supermarket? (I know we have three, but Waitrose is expensive and there are always queues to get in the carpark. M&S isn't a "weekly shop" type of place and Sainsburys is hard to use)
ReplyDeleteSo, my feeling is that a new supermarket may stop people going to other towns. And, then, just maybe, they would use the High Street, too?
However, if Sainsburys were allowed to raze St Martin's walk and build a great big central supermarket, all the shops in town would benefit. This has to be the best way forward, surely? Even if it were underground and Ceebie's great idea for a town square were built?
Dougie
Dougie what you say makes a lot of sense but SCC seem totally opposed to any development that makes use of Mill Lane for access/exit; their resoning does not impress me, i.e. heavy lorries in narrow road, etc.
ReplyDeleteCurrently Sainsburys' lorries are forced to use Lyons Court which is often full of elderly people because of the Mayflower center and to exit they come down Dene Street. Mill Lane, by comparison, is like a motorway.
Pepin
Hello again Chaps, which includes the ladies. It's the Curtis Road issue which has brought me here again (and hence my letter to the Ad last week) but exacerbated now by the blinkered attitude of many in the MVDC Meeting last night (10.11.09.) - Financial Scrutiny or some such. They are trying to claim (Nick Gray, 'Strategic Director' to the fore) that certain processes have to be gone through in relation to the Curtis Road site in order to protect the Council's and the other landowners of the site's interest and thus ours in terms of avoiding hikes in costs to taxpayers. When the fact is that they shouldn't even be considering allowing use of the site for a supermarket at all!!! Their logic is that it makes sense to move the Council Depot from there, which it does,...and there are limited apparent, as yet, other uses for the site so a supermarket it could be. RUBBISH! IDIOTIC!
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt that the town needs a reasonably-sized supermarket (a la Sainsbury's/Tesco's L'head tho' not necessarily either of those owners. The 2007 retail report commissioned by MVDC confirmed that fact (tho' interestingly there were the beginnings of efforts to discredit its findings last night which tends to confirm the existence of a 'hidden' agenda). A small survey (100 families) this year in NW Dorking did likewise.
The only place where a supermarket of the necessary size can be placed is near the centre where it will restore the town's whole retail energy. Curtis Road, or the Pippbrook site also mooted, could be successful in themselves because the demand is clearly there, but they will contribute NOTHING to the town's massive need...a viable central retail zone. Indeed will only contribute to the drain away from the centre.
I must add here that Pepin is well off-beam when he compares Dorking with Guildford (as did Peter Ruck in his letter to the 'Ad.' last week, ludicrously) along with Horsham and Cobham all of which have very different circumstances of location and/or size.
Pepin's dead right to throw doubt on the logic of SCC in his message above; what really does motivate them? I feel that there is an answer to traffic movement which would allow a centrally located supermarket and would be happy to communicate it to anyone interested, to see if there's any support/agreement.
By the way, I know in some ways it's good to have an M&S in Dorking but why do we need one when they have always been located in higher order centres and we do have Gu, Ki, Ep, Re and Ho not that far away for that level of shopping? OK I understand that a lot of food shoopping is done there, but that's because S'bys and Wtrs are not of the size to be able to stock enough higher value food products. Could part of the answer to our supermarket need lie there?
I will ask the same question again on here.
ReplyDelete"WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE PLANS THAT MVDC HAD DRAWN UP FOR SAINSBURY'S TO RE-DEVELOP AND ALMOST DOUBLE THE SIZE OF THE SITE WERE THEY ARE NOW ?? " right in the centre of Dorking.
Waitrose want to develop the bookshop right next door to them in South Street but they also need one more property so to make the car-parking very much larger.
Come on councillors tell us what has happened to thes projects.
Leslie Gilbert
Come on Leslie, it just isn't practicable for Sainsbury's to double size in (and absorb others by) the current location. I don't think one needs to spell out why. (Let Waitrose do what they want up there, presuming any development would fit in with surroundings; it doesn't alter the need for a 'lower-market' store closer to the town's heart.) Only such a lower-market store will generate the footfall needed to revitalise the central retail area. Preferably Sainsbury's for me, but whichever of the major stores will at last bring in the shoppers.
ReplyDeleteThe only practicable location is in Lower St Martin's Walk and there is a road system which could make it possible without altering the character of the town, nor even removing the flats; in fact, would only enhance it.
Ceebie
ReplyDeleteAsk to see the plans I'm talking about under the Freedom of Information Act.
I used the word "ALMOST" double.
It included the Cook shop,Skipton building society and Robert Dyas.
The junction of Mill Lane could not take the volume of traffic.
Leslie Gilbert
Leslie et al,
ReplyDeleteSplitting hairs somewhat on 'almost double' and 'double' aren't we?! Whichever, how would the available parking (and where is an increase possible in that area) going to cope? Access for customers and deliveries is problematic as it is.
I'd be a little concerned about the 'look' (ambience?) of a very large supermarket frontage on the High St.. I presume the displaced properties would be offered 'like for like' in alternative accommodation - there's certainly one of them we don't want to lose.
As many have commented, Mill Lane access is no more difficult/dangerous than the torturous access to the back of Sainsbury's. Having said that, given SCC blinkered attitudes and negative thinking there is a possible answer which would make Mill Lane one way (up) and answer so many traffic in Dorking issues. I might have mentioned it in your shop one day; I'd be happy to outline again, or for first time.