I think that the acquisition of the co-op by Asda will make everybody re-think the situation at least I hope that it will.
There is a traffic conundrum in Marple which nobody as far as I know has been able to solve. I think that Asda will be successful in Marple and that they will bring a competitively priced quality product to the town. This though will bring more traffic and if they ultimately extend their store then it will bring even more. Then there are the traffic implications if Chadwick Street is developed.
Where are all these cars going to go does anybody know. How are we going to ameliorate this traffic situation if we have two 25,000 sf supermarkets within three hundred metres of each other in Marple.?
Simone
This is the same old issue that was hashed and re-hashed by MIA. The problem isnt traffic, Marple will cope with this, its all about parking. The vast majority of people that will shop in the old Coop / new Asda will be existing Marple residents or people from those immediate surrounding towns already driving through Marple to get to an existing 'out of Marple' store. The same will apply to an 'extended' co-op / Asda store and equally to a 'new store' at Chadwick Street. New foodstores don't generate a great deal of 'new traffic' rather they redistribute existing foodstore related traffic and alter existing shopping patterns. Afterall, why should an additional store make an individual carry out more and more trips to foodstores. I can promise you that there have been many, many studies that have looked at this. Bottom line is, the vast majority of the traffic that will travel to these foodstores is already inherent to Marple - at the moment though this traffic eventually finds its way out of the town and parks in large car parks at Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, et al. This will change......
As I've bleated on now for ages like a scratched record, Marple faces a real parking issue in future, both with and without Asda replacing the co-op. The town suffers from a limited parking supply that is scattered all over the place. Only two large car parks exist, one at Co-op / Asda and the other at Chadwick Street (CS). In practice the existing Co-op car park barely copes with demand and CS acts as the vital 'pressure release valve' for the rest of the town during busy periods, whilst also serving local shops and businesses. Should only the Asda make-over of the Ridgedale Centre take place, then I suspect that the town will probably cope - but get ready for the potential need to lug your supermarket shopping across the road to Chadwick Street from time to time, as I suspect that at busy times (Saturday mornings / early afternoon), finding a space in the Co-op / Asda car park will be very, very difficlut.
If both developments go forward, then I really fear for the town. The CS proposals are ill-concieved in the critical regard of parking. The CS scheme effectively removes the existing car park and replaces it with a woefully under-sized rooftop 'semi-private' car park associated with another foodstore. The level of parking proposed in the CS scheme is barely enough to cater for the foodstore demand (I personally don't even think that it washes its face on this score) let alone all the current 'pressure valve' / local parking that currently takes place on the exitsing CS car park. The parking case for the CS development was seemingly cobbled together based on some limited weekend traffic data collected in the summer time and was based on the principle that current presure valve / local parking on CS would effectively be forced off the current car park into the remainder of the surrounding small public car parks scattered about the town. This may well break down in practice as it effectively relies on a person driving into Marple knowing in which car park a spare space is availbale - hence SMBC's condition on the CS scheme to provide 'real time' parking signage on the approach to the town, to try to guide people to available spaces. I have real concerns as to the effectiveness and downright practicalities of such a system working successfully in Marple, as many of the car parks are cramped, difficult to access and unsuited to the effective installation of real time data.
Even if it could work (and during events such as the food festival, christmas cracker, carnival, etc it certainly will not), what also worries me is that the previous CS case was based on the assumption of the Ridgedale Centre remaining the Co-op, with all the inherent issues of poor service and the towns disenchantment with that particular offer. Combine the CS scheme with a rejuveated Ridgedale Centre (under Asda) and I can only see a potential disaster that the town is sleepwalking towards. And who will suffer? Not the foodstore operators, but the remaining local retailers on Market St, whose customers could be shunted out. Thanks community, well played local councillors.
One of the only good things about the former Hibbert Lane proposals was that it wouldn't mess up the town centres ability to react to parking demand - as it provided a nice big self contained site. The granting of the CS proposals has potentially put a great big ticking timebomb under the town, which the Council could trip if they get their way and flog the site. They have been warned about this, but chose to ignore it at the planning application stage (for political expediency?) and equally MIA were negligibly silent on this issue. I hope we don't reap what we have sowed.....
Apologies. Rant over. But we're all doomed!
