Cranbrook could get Morrisons

The "new" town still lacks services.

East Devon District Council’s Strategic Planning Committee yesterday (Tuesday 25th February) agreed to ask the Cranbrook Consortium to put their version of what the town centre could look like in front of them, to see if they could support the concept behind it.

It was recently announced that plans for a new Morrisons supermarket and significant additional retail, commercial and residential spaces in Cranbrook town centre had been put forward by the Cranbrook Consortium.

The Cranberry Farm pub is supposed to be centre of the newly built town, but is so far the only building in the town centre that has been constructed.

However, the proposals the Consortium are putting forward may not conform to what was originally envisaged for the town centre and would be smaller than initially suggested.

Ed Freeman, Service Lead – Planning Strategy and Development, said the council therefore wished to produce their own ‘masterplan’ for the town centre via a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), but it could take up to six months to complee.

But Cllr Kevin Blakey, Portfolio Holder for Economy, urged the committee not to go down the route of a SPD for Cranbrook town centre as it ran the risk of leaving the ‘town centre’ empty for many years.

He said: “The Cranbrook Delivery Board has been in discussions with the Cranbrook Consortium with the object to coordinating delivery of the town centre. It has led to a plan which was prepared by the Consortium and includes a major brand supermarket, and commercial and public space, which is in excess of what is required by the s106 agreements and will deliver some of those well before the trigger points that they are legally due.

“The balance of the deal comes from release of extra land for housing development, but the belief is that the town centre does not need to be as big as initially envisaged and otherwise parts of it could be left undeveloped.

“We are on the brink of a deal but it is time limited. The anchor tenant [Morrisons] has six sites they are looking at but only three will go forward, so they have the option to walk away from anything that is too difficult or lengthy. If the discussions collapse, they will move on and a viable town centre for Cranbrook will stall.

“The Consortium wish to present full proposals for the committee to consider at the earliest possible date. Don’t go down the route of an SPD as it will result in a delay for sure, and runs the risk of leaving the centre of Cranbrook empty for many years to come.”

Cllr Sam Hawkins raised concerns about the realism of any timetable for the SPD to be done by September 2020 and that as Cranbrook has a different demographic to the rest of East Devon, they can rely on the internet to do their shopping so doesn’t need a traditional High Street.

He added: “If we keep taking our time, Cranbrook town centre will be the greenest in the country, because it will just be a field.”

Mark Williams, the council’s chief executive, said that the offer of the Cranbrook Consortium for the town centre was ‘a small apple’ and that officers would like policies in place to offer Cranbrook town centre as ‘a big apple’, but that going through the SPD route and the timescale required may lose what is on offer and not secure the delivery of the supermarket and the retail space. He added though: “If you accept the little apple, you won’t get the big one.”

Cllr Mike Howe though said the debate was about whether it was ‘a polished and ripe apple’ or if it was poisoned.

He said: “The developers’ ideas might suit us and Cranbrook but they will be purely profit driven. I don’t what to throw out their proposals when we don’t know what it is, but if we don’t stick to their timescale, then we could throw out something that might be reasonable. We need an urgent meeting so they can put forward their proposals.”

Cllr Mike Allen added: “We cannot make a decision on the proposal until we see it. If we like the proposal, there is nothing stopping us going ahead under Memorandum of Understanding or having agreeing to a departure from Local Plan Policy.”

Cllr Eleanor Rylance said that Cranbrook is in the grip and hands of developers and is not building a community, and asked whether going ahead with the developer’s plans was the consensus of the elected representatives of Cranbrook.

In response, Cllr Blakey said it was the unanimous agreement of the town council that it was a worthwhile and workable plan. He added: “It will deliver a viable and thriving town centre that will attract people from outside. We are arguing about the size of the apple and we are going for a slightly smaller shiny apple rather than a bigger apple that has rotted away.”

Councillors unanimously agreed that a special meeting of the Strategic Planning Committee needed to be held as soon as possible so that the proposals for the town centre from the Consortium could be assessed as to if they were strategically right for the town.

If backed, then a formal planning application would still need to be submitted and approved. If they were not backed, then the council could still go down the route of preparing a SPD outlining how the council would like to see the town centre developed.