The Saxton Arms sign now just says Saxton A, and there is a hole in the wall where the Morlands plaque used to be. The former pub was given planning permission back in June 2015 to become a shop. There is now a further planning application detailing how the proposed shop could look with: the addition of a cash machine, larger central shop door, external stairs, and additional storage at the back. The planning applications does not indicate who could run the shop.
There is a petition in the shops in Reynolds Way, close by, that local people loyal to the existing shops have been signing, objecting to the new shop as not needed.
Rumour has it that Tesco is behind the application. This would be a catastrophe for the current shops in Reynolds Way. Although there has been a petition to sign, I am amazed that there have only been a handful of individual objections submitted to the Council.
This has Tesco written all over it.
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Local residents are opposed to the conversion of the Saxton Arms to a shop. Reg and Shoba who run our local convenience store on Reynolds Way are a real assett to our community – the shop is a real aladdin’s cave – we have challenged them many times and they always come up trumps. I’d hate to see their hard work undermined by one of the big supermarkets. In a time when we are constantly told of a housing shortage and have green field development foisted on us it seems ridiculous to convert the pub to another shop within a stone’s throw of the existing ones when the site would seem ideal for conversion to flats.
Is the petition online?
No Kelly, I don’t think it is. I signed it in Reg’s shop.
We had a similar issue over the Ox a couple of years ago – lots of people, supported by our local Councillors, objected, on similar grounds – and because of traffic/safety concerns. However we were up against a brick wall because change from a pub to a shop is not a “change of use” in planning terms. That will be why the original application for this one was approved: the current one is just about details so objections would have to be about those.
Two positives, though: the convenience store next to the former Ox has survived, despite their unwelcome neighbour; and this application is still in the name of Hawthorn Leisure (owners of the Ox) so the sale may not yet have happened. (Although I know this is not the major issue, it could still be worth chasing them up about the Morlands sign – maybe even including a request for its reinstatement in comments on the planning application.)
and tellingly the predictions of traffic chaos around the former pub turned out to be totally untrue – funny that.
Hi Trudi, your point being ?
I can’t see Tesco opening there? Insufficient parking and not much room to expand for starters and it may be Hawthorn have connections with Tesco I just don’t see it. May be a Nisa, Londis or similar ?
dont know who trudi is but the point is, before the ox became a tesco a so called ‘report’ was released by someone who lived nearby claiming that if tesco developed the pub in any way, traffic chaos would result.
the pub was developed and…. no change for good or bad to the traffic.
…it’s interesting how often ‘reports’ prove totally inaccurate. Was this particular one paid for from the public purse?
Rudi, perhaps there’s no traffic chaos because the protestors ‘won’….and no one uses this Tesco?
This planning application was withdrawn by Hawthorne Leisure yesterday (23 December). I wonder what will be next?