Gerrards Cross Waitrose Opening Date…

I am writing to you on behalf of Frome Chamber of Commerce, in Somerset. Here in Frome we have a largely vacant brownfield site in the town centre awaiting development. We did have a proposal from St James Investments to build a supermarket and other retail premises. This is not yet a planning application, but is made on the back of an existing planning application for mixed use by Terramond. Frontier Estates have recently taken an option over part of the site.

Frome is presently a thriving town with a diverse range of independent retail outlets and two small supermarkets in town and two large ones out of town. We don’t need “regenerating” but we would welcome appropriate and well-designed development. We have a high number of listed buildings (second only to Bath in Somerset). We are concerned about the development of this site, especially following the experience in nearby Shepton Mallet where the development of a large Tesco and retail outlet on the aptly named “Townsend” Retail Park in the town centre appears to have done just that.

Frontier Estates represent themselves as wanting to work with representative bodies to create a viable scheme for the town, and we would be pleased to co-operate with that. However, their past history doesn’t suggest they or their architects have a track record of developments that would be appropriate for this setting.

Frontier Estates website refers to their Waitrose development site in Gerrards Cross so we assume they regard that as being a good example of their work. From local contacts I believe that there was opposition to this – I was brought up in Farnham Common and my parents live there. I would be very interested to know the views of local people about that.