Tesco dancing on Asda's grave at the Mart in Thurso?

[Raymond Taylor]

To summarise, you want to spoil the view by building an Asda or similar in the field next to Pennyland Farm. But why would Asda or whoever want to build a new supermarket right next to the big brand new Lidl? You also want to build on the land next to Victoria Walk in order to spoil one of the finest views in the world. You don't know how high your proposed hotel is compared with the Weigh Inn so you don't know how much worse your hotel might look compared to the Weigh Inn. This is land that will be a designated 'green belt' in the next council plan unless you can pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Thurso and convince them you're doing them a favour. I recommend that the people of Thurso should look at the Council's proposals for the expansion of Thurso to the west of the town. Raymond is proposing to spoil the finest vista by building a large hotel and a large number of chalets and a lot of retail outlets on the very last green fields in that area according to the planners' recommendations. I do not support that.

It's a democracy and everyone is entitled to an opinion so I feel I have to answer.

So what you are saying regarding the hotel is - the Highland Council planners will have a couple of years off and will allow me and world renowned architects John Thompson and Partners to design a hotel that will block out the sun without them noticing. If I am lucky enough to get the land allocated for tourism by them in the first place. Not a carefully designed 7m tall building with a flat green roof as per our widely distributed plan.

We will also be allowed to build a "large" number of chalets not six or seven units again as per my plan. Which will be no taller than the mausoleum which is hardly noticeable. The park of course will now be much smaller than the promised 19 acres because of the dozens of chalets built and I will sneakily turn what's left into a minefield and put barbed wire round it to sort the townsfolk out good and proper. I suppose you also think the proposed bandstand will actually be a place to sacrifice goats.

On to ASDA or any retailer for that matter - the almost 3000 people who signed the petition for an ASDA at Pennyland have all changed their minds, not one of these people now want a job, consumer choice or the national price for fuel over the next 20-30 years, the life of the next local plan. Remembering if a retail site is not included in the plan it will probably not happen during its lifetime.

That goes with the business, technology, housing and other land I am looking to get allocated. I have users waiting in the wings interested in each of these.

Sequential testing proves Pennyland next to the Mart site is the place to build for the good of the town and this is fact.
Towns elsewhere are bending over backwards to attract inward investment and get fit for the future. We need a local plan that beats them all and that will be one of the key themes to my final submission to planners. Scrabster is doing its bit and we need the infrastructure to support this if Thurso is to have any chance to stop its decline.

Anything we develop wherever it is will be done with taste and consideration to the people of Thurso if of course the land is allocated.

My hotel plans are public knowledge and the sizes are in the brief I wrote. People aren't stupid and your scaremongering agenda is obvious.

Two days now to deadline day.

[Bystander1]

Now, now Raymond Taylor, go easy with the common sense posts. You will have Creamola foaming and casting bad spells on all who transgress.

[Wanted]

It's a democracy and everyone is entitled to an opinion so I feel I have to answer.

So what you are saying regarding the hotel is - the Highland Council planners will have a couple of years off and will allow me and world renowned architects John Thompson and Partners to design a hotel that will block out the sun without them noticing. If I am lucky enough to get the land allocated for tourism by them in the first place. Not a carefully designed 7m tall building with a flat green roof as per our widely distributed plan.

We will also be allowed to build a "large" number of chalets not six or seven units again as per my plan. Which will be no taller than the mausoleum which is hardly noticeable. The park of course will now be much smaller than the promised 19 acres because of the dozens of chalets built and I will sneakily turn what's left into a minefield and put barbed wire round it to sort the townsfolk out good and proper. I suppose you also think the proposed bandstand will actually be a place to sacrifice goats.

On to ASDA or any retailer for that matter - the almost 3000 people who signed the petition for an ASDA at Pennyland have all changed their minds, not one of these people now want a job, consumer choice or the national price for fuel over the next 20-30 years, the life of the next local plan. Remembering if a retail site is not included in the plan it will probably not happen during its lifetime.

That goes with the business, technology, housing and other land I am looking to get allocated. I have users waiting in the wings interested in each of these.

Sequential testing proves Pennyland next to the Mart site is the place to build for the good of the town and this is fact.
Towns elsewhere are bending over backwards to attract inward investment and get fit for the future. We need a local plan that beats them all and that will be one of the key themes to my final submission to planners. Scrabster is doing its bit and we need the infrastructure to support this if Thurso is to have any chance to stop its decline.

Anything we develop wherever it is will be done with taste and consideration to the people of Thurso if of course the land is allocated.

My hotel plans are public knowledge and the sizes are in the brief I wrote. People aren't stupid and your scaremongering agenda is obvious.

Two days now to deadline day.

...I am all for progress and i totally agree with you...Bring on any developments that bring Thurso more up to date with competition , that is sorely needed against Tesco"s land banking at the mart site.....Are the council going to make Tesco sell the land or will they have the bottle to make a compulsory purchase order off them..going off how lenient they have been with Tesco and let them take the P.ss i somehow do not think so.

[Moonboots]

Here is a quote from another site where they are debating the closures of their stores.

"Fourteen years ago Tesco bought a very large site in Wolverhampton and promised every year the new store will be started every next spring, but now 6 small shops have been opened the large store will never be built and the very big site could well be left an other ten year but it does look a mess, an empty hospital,the nurse's home, a bus garage,two closed roads, Tesco have lied and it looks their lies are chocking their self"

Now as you can see, they have been doing this all over the place which we all know so why has nothing been done about this yet...

[2little2late]

As long as 95% of highland Councillors have shares in Tesco , they will not do any stepping in on this site, ..if it was a council that really cares for its residents , they should come in with a compulsory purchase of the land and let it made available to anyone including ASDA, who will have no chance of Tesco selling it to them

They'll all be kicking themselves now with Tesco share price falling dramatically. Serves them right.

[crayola]

Crayola, I don't suppose you are old enough to remember what was on that site from 1940 to approx 1949/50. I do. It was a big collection of Nissan huts , a transit camp for the military traveling across to Orkney from the south and vice versa. No one bothered about the view then. I see no problem on any buildings being built , as for the Victoria Walk, how much of the original Walk is still there? How much disappeared with the houses that were built at Burnside?

Ha ha Golly sweetie, I definitely wasn't on this Earth back in those days. The difference is that a nissen hut is only 3 metres high whereas Raymond's 7 metre high hotel would be more than twice as high as a nissen hut which would block out the sun as he admitted in his post. His plan to surround his hotel and chalets with barbed wire would spoil the amenity further. Meanwhile Tesco the company sadly sinks deeper and deeper into the industrial mire.

[Perambulate]

is this hotel getting e go ahead?

[Raymond Taylor]

Some positive noises coming from Highland Council in their recommendations which have since been debated and passed by the Caithness and Sutherland committee. The lack of a retail allocation was noted by the members.

My view on the retail point is we can no longer be held to ransom by the owners of the Mart site and the live retail allocation that site has. It's pretty simple to solve that problem...allocate another site even if it never gets built on during the new plans lifetime.

So, still a bit to go but I have to say it looks very promising. It could still all get hijacked as it did 20 years ago in Inverness. I await comment from the officials who have done a great job in their recommendations. They have taken onboard the Charrette outcome and the views of the majority of local people interested in a buoyant/diverse future for the town. They realise tourism and diversification play a key roll and these points are the basis for much of the CASplan outcomes throughout all the communities in Caithness and Sutherland.

I can push on if these recommendations get through the Inverness vote in August this year.

Link to recommendations -

http://www.highland.gov.uk/download/...velopment_plan

[gerry4]

Raymond, Do you mean that Caithness and Sutherland committee have approved the hotel or the re-designation of the site to something else apart from a supermarket. If so, this is this is the first I have heard of it.

When there was a thread on the hotel complex on here I thought that the majority of people were against having the hotel as it would spoil the view to the Orkneys or is this a totally different hotel & I am talking rubbish (not unknown).

[sids]

this is the first I have heard of it.

You haven't been keeping your ear to the railway.

When there was a thread on the hotel complex on here I thought that the majority of people were against having the hotel as it would spoil the view to the Orkneys or is this a totally different hotel & I am talking rubbish (not unknown).[/COLOR]

A majority of unemployables living with their mum, on a thread here isn't a majority of people.

[Raymond Taylor]

Raymond, Do you mean that Caithness and Sutherland committee have approved the hotel or the re-designation of the site to something else apart from a supermarket. If so, this is this is the first I have heard of it.When there was a thread on the hotel complex on here I thought that the majority of people were against having the hotel as it would spoil the view to the Orkneys or is this a totally different hotel & I am talking rubbish (not unknown).

No, the Caithness and Sutherland committee have sanctioned the Highland Council planning officials recommendations as per the link provided. These recommendations are in line with the Charrettee outcome and the Main Issues Report referred to earlier here and the hotel thread.

I have to say I think you are wrong when you say the majority of people were against the hotel project which is just a small part of the overall plan.

[crayola]

It's 6 years now since I started this thread. Initially people blamed Tesco's land banking for the impasse at the mart site. Then Highland Council's failure to do anything about Tesco's inactivity earned the wrath of the town. Others including me blamed Asda for not having a Plan B to fall back on when their Plan A failed. More recently it became apparent that Raymond Taylor was and continues to be more intimately tied up up with the entire issue than I had initially realised. Do you have anything to say on the sixth anniversary of this thread Mr Taylor?

[crayola]

I hear rumours that Tesco have sold the land at the mart. Can anyone confirm or refute?

[gleeber]

It's 6 years now since I started this thread. Initially people blamed Tesco's land banking for the impasse at the mart site. Then Highland Council's failure to do anything about Tesco's inactivity earned the wrath of the town. Others including me blamed Asda for not having a Plan B to fall back on when their Plan A failed. More recently it became apparent that Raymond Taylor was and continues to be more intimately tied up up with the entire issue than I had initially realised. Do you have anything to say on the sixth anniversary of this thread Mr Taylor?

What's that mean?

I hear rumours that Tesco have sold the land at the mart. Can anyone confirm or refute?

It was in the Groat yesterday that councillors Mackay and Saxon though the site had been sold but didn't know who to.

[crayola]

Gleeber sweetie, it's Mr Taylor's duty to answer your question. Maybe he's bought the land at the mart himself. Thank you anyway for answering my question, I don't look at the Groat much these days. We shall have to wait and see how it all pans out eventually, maybe in another six years.

[sids]

Gleeber sweetie, it's Mr Taylor's duty to answer your question.

I remember when babbling on forums was voluntary.

[Raymond Taylor]

Gleeber sweetie, it's Mr Taylor's duty to answer your question. Maybe he's bought the land at the mart himself. Thank you anyway for answering my question, I don't look at the Groat much these days. We shall have to wait and see how it all pans out eventually, maybe in another six years.

Is it really my duty to keep answering drivel?

[davth]

I thought that the majority of people were against having the hotel as it would spoil the view to the Orkneys

You have no claim on a view, unless you purchase the land!!

[plank]

Wo's buying the mart then?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34528959

"Tesco sells mothballed supermarket sites for £250m"

[Bobinovich]

Thurso site was bought earlier this year as part of a package of vacant Tesco-owned sites - as always we'll just have to wait & see what happens next...