Action Briefing Feb 2003 - Mar 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

West Midlands News

DEAL TIME: ‘Out-of-town’ school paves the way for ‘In-town’ Superstore

A secondary school is at the centre of a battle between two supermarket chains which both want to build a new store in Worcester. Tesco has reached an agreement with Worcestershire County Council to develop a new £12 million school so it can build on the current site of Christopher Whitehead school in the St. John’s area of the city. Sainsbury, meanwhile, have already gained planning permission from Worcester City Council to build a store on land adjacent to the existing school site, and is offering to build a new sports centre and other ancillary improvements.

Sainsbury’s plans are dependent upon their gaining possession of a strip of school land owned by the County Council’s Education Department - who won’t sell it to them! Worcestershire County Council said refurbishing the existing school would prove an unnecessary drain on education resources and the new site would serve its catchment area better. Sainsbury have offered to contribute to the refurbishment of the existing school.

Tesco has agreed to build a bigger 1,350 pupil school at Earls Court Farm on 15 acres of Grade 2/3a agricultural land, and construct several football and hockey pitches. On 11th February, Worcester City Council granted outline planning permission for this proposal subject to satisfactory safe routes to school being agreed with West Mercia Police. Because the new route is longer and more dangerous, half the school children who currently walk to school will have to be bussed in.

Worcester MP Michael Foster (Labour) said the unsatisfactory stalemate was one of the problems of two-tier authorities. “This situation has been drifting on for years and it is not satisfactory for anybody,” he said. “Some people need to sit down and work out what gives the best value for Worcester.”

Along with Worcester City Council, Malvern Hills District Council and many other groups, Worcester Friends of the Earth lodged strong objections to this development. Worcester FOE will now make strong representations to local politicians and the Government Office of the West Midlands to ensure that this extraordinary development proposal will be heard before an independent planning inspector at a full public inquiry.

Nigel Bruen of Worcester FOE said "With a breathtaking display of opportunism, Worcestershire County Council have chosen to ignore their own County Structure Plan Policies when granting themselves outline planning permission for the new ‘out-of-town’ secondary school at Earls Court, Worcester.

"Policies on the care for the environment, on the use of previously developed land, of minimising the need to travel, of achieving balanced communities, on the safeguarding of the best agricultural land and maintaining landscape character, of maintaining development in urban areas, have all been thrown out of the window.

"What makes matters ten times worse is that the engine that drives this opportunism is something close to bribery. Supermarket giant Tesco are willing to pay in full for the new school in exchange for getting a new superstore on the existing school site. It would seem that this approximates to the purchase of planning consent and to many, seems to be both immoral and unethical.
The message that Worcestershire County Council is sending out to developers of greenfield sites is clearly this, ‘Come on in, the water’s lovely’.”

Chris Crean