Edinburgh House were always going to get the OUTLINE planning permission renewed, but they haven't been able to find an operator in 5 years (they've all deemed it unsuitable) so it's not going to effect anything on Wheldon Road.

If this was the case, why did OPUS object in writing to this?????

its only OPP thats been granted to EH and they've had that for 5 years previously without doing anything with it. i think tesco turned down an approach from EH as the aire street site was unsuitable for a supermarket. may be wrong as the story seems to change weekly.

Supermarkets hate each others guts. OK the EH application may not be the biggest site but it is still a pretty good one right next to the town centre. Even a small supermarket on there would make any other site less viable because it would take a percentage of the available trade. Just look what sainsburys did on ings road to balk the tesco store on there.

If NM gets passed it will all be irrelevant because Cas Tigers will be under massive pressure to go there.

All the Supermarkets have deemed the site unsuitable....



That doesn't even make sense, especially with Opus now going on record saying Wheldon Road will be sold within a month.

+ if there was ever going to be "pressure" on Cas to go to Newmarket, it would have been when the idea was first put forward.

Yes its only outline thats been granted for now as there are no hard and fast plans in place to submit. But should they come up with some that fit the criteria then the the chance that FPP would be refused is slim. I keep hearing this 'it isn't suitable for a supermarket' phrase and that all operators have turned it down because of that. That isn't exactly true. It wasn't suitable for Tesco. Other supermarkets just didn't want it at the time it was being marketed. They didn't want any of the Wheldon Road sites either! Tesco have no idea whether its good for another operator, its just they don't want it so would rather nobody else could move in and scupper their plans for elsewhere in Cas. Now it has renewed OPP it will get marketed as an oppourtunity to stop Tesco getting a foothold in the area (its well known Tesco are under represented in this part of yorkshire). It wouldn't surprise me if someone now came forward in order to keep Tesco out as I think we all know there won't be two supermarkets built in the town and whilst the site wouldn't be perfect, a decent sized store could still be built there and be profitable enough. This is not to say anything will be built there, they will certainly need to act fast and probably drop the price they wanted, but to say it won't make any difference to the plans at WR is wrong. It doesn't stop them, but it does potentially make them that bit harder to bring to fruition.

Incorrect. Only Tesco have said its unsuitable, the others just didn't want it at the time. As I've stated elsewhere, they didn't want Wheldon Road either, does it mean that they don't think that its not suitable? No, just that they didn't want it, nothing more, nothing less. Its a case of whether they see a massive outlay for a huge store as worth their while. Tesco obviously think they can make it pay, maybe others think the need just isn't there.

Do I think there will ever be a supermarket at EH? Probably not no, but it doesn't make life easy for other sites trying to get one built elsewhere, especially if they are classed as out of town.

Actually Tesco said something along the lines of after discussion with other operators.... so that would suggest that Sainsburrys and Morrisons agree with them, and todays article with Opus suggests it is in fact Tesco who will be buying Wheldon Road, so that would show you to be wrong.

EH will also not make anything harder for other sites, the council said so today...they shouldn't have reapplied really, all it will do is create animosity and lose the custom within the town.

Why am I wrong? I said the other supermarkets weren't interested in a site on WR and they aren't. Tesco are the only ones interested. And Tesco have no idea what other operators said, they actually wrote something along the lines of 'whilst we obviously don't know the content of discussion with our rivals, in our opinion we believe other operators will think the same way'. Subtle difference. EH won't affect WR unless they get an operator, if they do its curtains. But the likelihood is that they won't and you will be ok and I genuinely hope that you are, I want this area to become athe powerhouse of RL. I'd like to see Featherstone promoted into an extended 16 team superleague as well. But don't expect it to happen quickly or easily, these types of developments never do.

I honestly have no idea regarding Tesco's etc and where supermarkets are likely/not likely to be built,but I work at a well known confectionary site on Wheldon road,just prior to xmas our car parks were out of bounds as there was a company piledriving every 50yds around the site,it could be absolutely nothing to do with supermarkets...Then again?

The Tesco CEO of 25 years stepped down today, following their recent profit warning and £5 billion being wiped off their share value in one day; I wonder what that will do to their development plans - build more to reclaim market share, or batten down the hatches and seek efficiencies?

Interesting times!

I'm an epos engineer by trade and from the little contracts that are available suggests to me all supermarkets are cutting back, no work since October and only iceland stores doing anything on the epos side that I'm aware of.

Without wanting to trawl through loads of old threads - wasn't the problem with Tesco's profits due in part to the massive out of town developments that hadn't reaped the rewards they'd expected? I also thought the issue with the Wheldon Road site was the flood level, which would impact on the amount of insurance a retailer would have to pay. Originally, things didn't look too bad, then someone else came along, and it all looked different... I dunno... and the longer this goes on, the more I struggle to care. Let's just get Newmarket built, or at least passed by the PI. Then I'm out of here.

Alf posted somewhere yesterday I believe that the rugby ground and C6 have been removed from the "1 in a 100 year" flood risk status/category (whatever it is)

And in regard to the Tesco point about cutting supermarkets, from reading up on this my understanding is that they're cutting down on the big massive hypermarkets with everything from food to electronics to clothes.

As Cas is solely a foodstore, that shouldn't affect the plans either.