Dear [NAME]
IN THIS ISSUE:
- What happened on Wednesday?
What happened last week?
It’s only gradually, over the last two years, that we’ve all got used to just how much rubbish happens when you try to fight an open and honest campaign, using democratic processes that are supposed to provide a vehicle for public opinion, deploy sound arguments and carefully considered objections and believe the timescales you are given.
That’s why so much of the process witnessed at the Winchester City Council Committee meeting came both as a revelation and a shock to many who were able to attend. A councillor asleep during the proceedings, a chairman who didn’t listen to our representative and then used his casting vote in favour of change, planning officers who feel that phoning one individual in three separate towns is good enough research to argue Sainsbury’s case, etc, etc.
Remember this from Newsletter No 30?
Well, we experienced a touch of the same from Central Government processes last week! A full press release was sent out on Wednesday but the guts of it is that, having taken lots of advice in mid-April, BWAG worked hard to put together a coherent argument for the Secretary of State to call in Sainsbury’s application. As we did so, we repeatedly checked with his department about deadlines and were told that Thursday 5 May was the deadline for electronic submissions, with the next day, Friday 6 May, being decision day. Two 16-page documents, including one prepared specially by a nationally recognised expert on heritage matters, Dr Peter Wardle, were therefore sent in electronically on the Thursday morning. Also included was the new 3,000-signature petition – in direct support of BWAG’s submission – that so many of you had signed over the two Bank Holiday weekends.
But, on phoning shortly afterwards to ensure that the materials had arrived, we were told rather peremptorily that they were irrelevant because the decision had been taken earlier that Thursday morning and Winchester had already been informed that it was approved.
We could scarcely believe it! We had phoned several times during the preceding days to make doubly sure we had the right information and were told the file would be clearly marked to show a submission and petition were on their way. Suddenly it felt as if, in one fell swoop, someone at the Department had snatched away both our and your legitimate expectations that the submission(s) would be properly regarded and considered.
Matters were made worse by the fact that WCC lost little time in posting the Department’s letter on its website and, of course, once the information was in the public domain, any retraction was going to be nigh on impossible.
In fact, following strong representations, the Department did agree to consider the situation and get back to us.
What happened on Wednesday?
The Department finally responded on Wednesday afternoon saying that they had reviewed the submissions although they stressed this was not a “re-opening of the case”. They have taken the view however that the two submissions raised no new issues which fell within the strict criteria which would justify taking the exceptional step of calling-in the application. There is, they pointed out, no right of appeal against the decision not to call in an application.
So all those signatures, all that hard work have come to nought. But, as with so much in this whole process, we all gave it our best shot – so thank you once again for signing the petition and building the numbers so fast.
Both submissions are available on our website’s homepage – www.bwactiongroup.org.uk – do please take a minute or two to have a look – we tried to cover every angle, including many things you told us about that have concerned you!
What happens now?
This is more difficult to answer. We always said that getting the application called in and properly heard by a Planning Inspector was our ‘one last chance’.
There are other possibilities – people have suggested a Judicial Review – but the window of opportunity is now very narrow indeed and we do not want to build up any false expectations. What we plan to do is to consider the situation, gather whatever advice we can and proceed sensibly – Judicial Review is an extremely costly, and potentially uncertain process!
What you can be certain of is that we will keep in touch with you. Please let us know what you think – we will listen hard to any ideas or thoughts. And please keep your ears and eyes open – do let us know if you come across anything of interest!
Thank You
We really would like to say a very big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped in this campaign. You are too numerous to mention but, in no particular order...
Thanks to everyone – 4,500 of you – who signed Pete Atkinson’s original petition.
Thanks to all of you who wrote such heartfelt letters to WCC – all 2,450 of you! Amazing!
Thanks again to everyone – 3,025 of you – who signed our latest petition, an awesome number in just 12 days!
Thanks to everyone who volunteered to help, including distributing leaflets and flyers. Invaluable.
Thanks to the many, many people who gave us donations, the campaign has cost thousands and would have been impossible without that help. Thanks also to everyone who put money into our collection pots – it really helped.
Thanks to so many of you who contacted us with ideas, with offers of help, with news, with their recollections of the WCC Planning meeting etc.
Thanks to people, like Print It Now, who provided their services free or at cost.
Thanks to everyone who agreed to have a poster in their garden.
Thanks to everyone on the High Street who put up our posters, provided space to distribute our newsletters and persuaded people to sign the petitions.
Thanks to everyone who turned out for the Parish Council meeting in the Jubilee Hall last August.
Thanks to everyone who came to the Guildhall for the handing in of the first petition in July last year, and those who attended the planning meeting itself in April.
Thanks to those, like John Hayter and Peter Stevens who acted as outriders to our main campaign and constantly nagged and harassed WCC and Sainsbury’s agents whenever the opportunity arose.
Thanks for reading our newsletters and staying in touch with us.
You’ve all been an amazing group of supporters!
Posters
The public protest part of the campaign has now reached its natural conclusion and, as mentioned above, we’d like to thank everyone who agreed to have one of our posters in their garden or on their house. Please take them down as soon as you can, if you’d like our help then send us an email to info@bwactiongroup.org.uk and we’ll see what we can do. Please anyway contact us (on this email address) once you’ve taken your sign down and we’ll come and collect it. Who knows, they may have their uses yet – so don’t throw them away!
Newsletters
We are still very keen to stay in touch with as many supporters as possible over the coming weeks/months. So please get your friends to just add their name and email address in the box at the top left hand corner of our website’s home page: http://www.bwactiongroup.org.uk. It’s that easy... Forward this email to them!
DONATIONS
Depending on the advice we receive, we will let people know if we need more donations.
THANK YOU ALL – THIS IS NOT THE LAST YOU WILL HEAR FROM US.
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