FROME DESERVES

BETTER

BIG TRANSPORT. BAD TRAFFIC. HUGE PROBLEMS.

Fromes roads are already overstretched. Portway, Christchurch Street East and many other routes serving the town centre are already prone to congestion. Any number of incidents e.g. the occasional flooding in the Wallbridge area, regularly make

things worse. The imminent extension of Asda and the arrival of the Steiner School on Park Road will

add to the complications.

Building a huge retail park at Saxonvale while leav-ing Fromes roads largely as they are will cause huge problems, both as any development is being built, and when it opens. The headteacher of St Johns First School on Christchurch Street East has formal-ly objected to the plans, citing health and safety risks to the 300 children who attend this school,

along with their families.

To make things worse, Frontier say they want to use Vicarage Street for night deliveries to their retail park. As anyone who

uses this historic street will know, it is already blighted by completely unsuitable heavy traffic. What is now being proposed

looks like madness.

In addition, there are serious concerns about how the proposed retail park will be accessed from the town centre. As happens

at the moment, the main route between Saxonvale and Market Place will still be along the narrow and dangerous pavement

on King Street. Entering the retail park from this direction will then involve a double road crossing.

The nearest bus stop to the retail park will be around

300 metres away and the principal pedestrian route from

the store foyer to the town centre will be via a flight of

steps, which does not comply with disability rules. The needs of cyclists have not been taken seriously. All told,

this is a plan which has focused almost exclusively on cars, while paying precious little attention to what hugely increased traffic will do to Frome.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

A date for Mendip District Councils planning hearing has yet to be set, but is expected soon. If you are con-cerned about Frontiers plans you can:

1. Contact your local Mendip District Councillor. A full list of Frome representatives is at www.frome-tc.gov.uk/

mendip-districtcouncillors

2. Write to David Heath MP, who represents Somerton

and Frome at davidheath@davidheath.co.uk

3. Sign up for regular newsletters and meeting news at

wwww.keepfromelocal.org.uk keepfromelocal@gmail.com facebook.com/groups/saxonvale twitter.com/KeepFromeLocal

The future of our town and the case against another

retai l park

Keep Frome Local is a pro-town centre group, part of a growing UK-wide Town Centre Movement, re-adopted in 2009. We are not an anti-supermarket group, nor opposed to Saxonvales redevelopment.

We support the vision for Saxonvale outlined in Mendip District Councils Planning Brief for the site. We are a broad, demo-cratic organisation, growing out of consultation and discussion involving hundreds of Frome residents.

We believe that Saxonvale should be redeveloped in a way that enhances the town centre and increases Fromes econom-ic resilience. The current Frontier plan with a 52,000 square foot superstore at its centre, heavy dependence on car use and a lack of integration with the existing town centre fails to achieve this.

Children crossing Vicarage Street going to St Johns School, 08:53 AM.

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THERES NO PLACE LIKE FROME

Britains cities, towns, and villages are changing in all kinds of ways. The rise of online shopping and the recent recession have had

a dramatic effect on high streets. National retail chains, once hugely profitable, have gone bust. If town centres are to survive and

prosper, they will have to embrace new thinking and open themselves up to much more than shopping.

Frome is doing better than most places of a similar size. We are fortunate that our shop vacancy rates are low. Our town centre is

full of successful independent businesses. Events such as the Frome Independent ( previously known as the Super Market ) have

brought new innovations to the towns streets. We also have a town council who are looking to the future and working on all kinds

of new ideas that will benefit the whole of our community.

FROME FACES A GRAVE THREAT

The Milton Keynes-based developers Frontier Estates have applied for planning permission to build a huge new retail park on the Saxonvale site, which sits at the edge of the existing town centre.

Their proposals are dominated by a 52,000 square foot supermarket and a huge car park, along with over 15 new retail units. They have no plans to seriously change Fromes traffic system, nor convincingly in-tegrate their retail park with the town. Their proposals will leave large swathes of the Saxonvale site untouched, and reduce the chances of it ever being developed. Viewed from many areas of Frome, their devel-opment will be an ugly eyesore.

Worse still, they want it to be dominated by retail, at exactly the point that the future of such busi-nesses looks more uncertain than ever.

THE BIG PICTURE -WHY RETAIL NO LONGER SELLS

The first weeks of 2014 saw headlines about the dire performance of such chains as M&S, Tesco and Morrisons. The last six years

have seen no end of high street chains either disappear, or enter administration. There are credible predictions that up to 40% of

British shops will have to close over the next five years, as people spend more and more online. So why flood Frome with more

retail chains?

Town centres are faced with two key lessons.

First, independent, locally-owned businesses tend to be more re-silient than big retail chains. In 2012, the town-centres expert and

fellow of the New Economics Foundation Andrew Simms came to

Frome to speak at a conference about the future of towns.

The big chains tend to be fairweather friends when the going gets rough, he says. As soon as one of their outlying stores stops hitting their targets, they shut up shop and get out. Local independent stores tend to hang in more because they have a much

greater investment in the local community. Fromes town centre is proof of this. Our huge range of independent shops is one of

the reason we have weathered the downturn so well.

The second big lesson for towns is about the need to include much more than retail in any new developments. If shopping is to form a much smaller part of what people expect from town centres, places will only prosper if they devote more space to residential uses, new kinds of industry and business, and community facilities.

People in Frome realised this earlier than most. In 2005, Mendip District Council worked with the town on the Development Brief for Saxonvale (last formally re-adopted in 2009), which set out a vision of a mixed use, high density scheme, including housing, retail accommodation, em-ployment and open spaces which would be a seamless extension to Frome town centre.

What Frontier Estates are proposing has nothing to do with this. They want to build an old-fash-ioned, car-centric retail park, cut off from the rest of the town, which would do unimaginable damage to Frome.

In the short term, their plans could have a dire effect on the existing

town centre, similar to what the huge Townsend retail park has done

to Shepton Mallet. Frontier claim their plans would create new employment: given that the towns spending power is not likely to

appreciably increase, they would probably cause job losses elsewhere in the Frome area, and threaten existing businesses. Over

time, the retail chains they had attracted to their development would be likely to come up against peoples changed shopping hab-its, and hit hard times themselves. The eventual result would be the annihilation of our town centre, to absolutely nobodys benefit.

Frontiers plans are short-sighted, and dangerous. This is why their proposals are opposed by a huge range of local people and organisations, including Frome Town Council, the towns Chamber of Commerce, and Frome Civic Society. They all know that

Frome deserves better.

BIG RETAIL CHAINS THAT HAVE EITHER DISAPPEARED OR GONE INTO ADMINISTRATION SINCE 2007

JJB SportsClinton cardsPeacocksBlacksBarratts shoesJane NormanHMVGameLa SenzaPast TimesJessopsFocus DIYCometMFIThreshersDreamsJulian GravesHawkins Bazaar

While the Town Council wants to see Saxon-vale developed, it doesnt want to see devel-opment at any price. The quality of the outline scheme just didnt live up to expectationsThe Council felt that the decision to recom-mend refusal of the Frontier application was the right thing to do. They hope that Mendip will take this objection seriously given the level of community engagement, and the at-tention to detail by officers in their report to Councillors.

Paul Wynne, Town Clerk, Frome Town Council

Saxonvale is the last site which can contribute to the well-being of Frome town centre. It has great positive potential if done right. It has great potential to dam-age the town if done wrong. This is not the right scheme.

Frome Chamber of Commerce

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