High Tax Hartlepool                                                                                                                                                 

hartlepool’s only newspaper

finds itself in hot water over its

election coverage

mail in hot water

a long-lost diary is recovered

from seaton meadows . . . but

who is the writer?

. . dear diary

has the town’s M.P. Iain

Wright finally become too

much of a liability for

labour?

doing the wright thing?

stop the deportation

. . . talk of the resignations from

the labour camp of two labour

councillors are proving surprisingly

hard to substantiate. Rumour has

it that Lilian Sutheran and Sandra

Fenwick have both gone Indie

following the distribution of special

allowances . . . sorry, following the

distribution of the Chairs of the

various committees . . . BC has heard several

versions of events and possible reasons from the

pair’s disgust at the undemocratic distribution of

Committee Chairs as practiced by labour, to a

dispute over the party’s lotto syndicate . . . I regret

to announce that I’m no wiser now as to what the

real cause than I was when the rumours first began

or even if the rumours are true . . . certainly if Mad

Marge takes over as Biscuit Monitor there will be

austere times ahead with no more Kit-Kats on the

table; Digestives will no doubt be the order of the

day . . . they help keep voting regular and

predictable I gather.

Spare a thought for young Jonathan (with an ‘a’)

whose labour leadership tenure seems to have

unfortunately coincided with the consistent decline

in the town’s support for his snake pit co-

inhabitants. A diminishing number of Councillors,

losing his majority, a dismal showing in the Mayoral

Election and coming second to UKIP in the European

Elections . . . add to that an M.P. with an expensive

taste in music, a dithering Prime Minister, and a

floundering Government with almost daily

resignations . . . No wonder he’s now taken to

writing to the Mail about how the public have lost

faith in politics and politicians . . . yes, it’s a

mystery, my ginger friend . . . never mind Jonathan

(with an ‘a’) . . . you still couldn’t see why any of

the above should stop you claiming every chair of

the council committees . . . perhaps there’s a clue

there somewhere.

How thoughtful of Jimmy Krankie to donate some of

our tax to charitable causes after it inadvertently

found it’s way into the local Currys and not-so-local

Barker and Stonehouse Stores . . . and how clever

of him to spot it . . . he’s a local lad through and

through, you know . . . although I gather he

developed the habit of buying his meat in Sedgefield

. . . well, at the time, you never knew who you

might bump into . . .  I hear the biggest item on the

next batch of M.P.s expenses is set to be black

Magic Markers.

Classified

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a look at the peculiar culture

that drives public sector

organisations

it’s a culture thing

This Horse has Bolted

Not for the first time recently, Hartlepool Borough Council’s Planning

Committee has found itself at the centre of controversy. Two months ago, it

caused a stir by initially rejecting the planning application from the

Headland Development Trust to build a new Arts Academy next to St Hild’s

School in King Oswy Drive. This time the committee has chosen to to reject

a £25m planning application from Chase Property Developments who had

come up with a development plan for the Tees Bay Retail Park in Brenda

Road.

Outline planning permission had already been granted to Chase Developments in

2007. That permission placed restrictions on the sale of various items including food and drink, clothes and

stationary in order to minimise any impact on Middleton Grange Shopping Centre.

The latest plans were submitted earlier this year and added an extra 49,000 sq ft in the form of a

mezzanine first floor. This, said the developers, was necessary to allow extra flexibility and to allow

existing retailers to relocate; not all of the additional 49,000 sq ft would be trading space.

The plan was rejected over concerns about the long-term future of Middleton Grange Shopping Centre

with Council Officers suggesting that further development of Rees Bay would have an adverse affect on

the town centre shopping complex.

The concern over Middleton Grange shown by the Planning Committee is a legitimate one and reflects the

public mood. For years now there has been a gradual fall in the number of occupied units within the town’s

main shopping centre together with a diminishing presence of recognised national retailers. The common

perception is of a drift to the lower end of the the retail market with a predominance of Pound Shops and

Pasty Shops.

In the run-up to the mayoral election, Mayor, Stuart Drummond suddenly woke up to the state of Middleton

Grange. He promised to give the matter his attention but, given his previous seven years of inaction and

the fact that the election is now over, perhaps this is not a good time for breath holding.

It’s unfortunate that the Planning Committee has chosen the wrong target on which to vent its frustration.

The Tees Bay Retail Park has, up until now, proven to be something of an embarrassment as Retail parks

go; a white-elephant that has never quite lived up to the hype surrounding its initial construction. It’s

copious parking space has so far proven to be laughingly optimistic. The plans of Chase Property would, in

many ways, have served to put that right.

In many ways this horse has already bolted - Tees Bay Retail Park

already exists. Consequently, the application in front of the Planning

Committee last week was not to decide whether we should have a Retail

Park at the Brenda Road site; the decision to be made was whether or

not we should have something approaching the Retail Park that the town

was originally promised.

 

The potential impact of the retail park on Middleton Grange was

presumably discussed when the original plans were submitted many

years ago and the Planning Committee of the day gave those plans the

go-ahead - plans that envisaged a much larger development than the one

with which we ended up but very similar to the latest plans put forward by

Chase Developments. This flip-flop approach suggests, at best, an

inconsistent Planning Policy.l

Councillors are right to show their concerns over Middleton Grange but

the plans to make the Tees Bay Retail Park more like what was originally envisaged are the wrong vehicle

through which to air those concerns. Refusing such applications will only serve to perpetuate the lack-

lustre and unimaginative management that currently plagues the town’s main Shopping Centre. What the

owners and Management of the Shopping Centre need to appreciate is that retail is a competitive market

and that management of such centres need to be concerned more than anything about about foot-fall - the

ability to attract visitors in the first place.

The ease with which the current management has accepted the departure of national retailers with little

more than a shrug of the shoulders is alarming and we all should take note when national chains like The

Body Shop cite ‘unrealistic rents’ as their reason for upping sticks.

There are presently over 30 empty units within the Shopping Centre with the indoor market almost

deserted. There is no overall plan as to the optimum blend of retailers the centre management would like

to see in order to increase visitor numbers - anyone will do - and if units stand empty then so be it. The

universal law of supply and demand has, apparently, no place in the Middleton Grange management

mindset; they would rather see national retailers like The Body Shop go than be forced to reduce their

rents to more realistic levels.

And of course, the fewer the number of national retailers the fewer the number of visitors.

We should not go out of our way to protect such unimaginative management. Lower rents, real financial

incentives to attract national chains and yes, lower car parking charges are what is needed.