Okay, let’s say a supermarket giant wants to build a gigantic new store in town.
Do they tell us:
- This will considerably increase our profits.
- It will dwarf and destroy any local convenience stores?
- We’ll sell booze so cheap local pubs will close down?
- We’ll mix our low price offers with over-priced goods cleverly disguised so you won’t notice?
- We don’t just want some local trade, we want it all including fireworks, flowers, car washing. Nothing will escape our net.
We’ve seen it enough times to know exactly what tactics they will employ.
It’s the old stick and carrot routine.
They’ll use jobs (real or imagined) as the carrot and the threat that without their new superstore shoppers will travel elsewhere to spend their money. (That’s the stick).
It’s more than a touch patronising to keep rolling out the same reasons to endorse unwanted developments. It suggests an arrogant belief in public gullibility.
But what other reason could Wilson Bowden and Cheshire East offer for their monstrous glass, cement and steel vision of Macclesfield town centre, which they say will ‘create 826 permanent jobs on top of the 529 jobs created during construction’.
AND they claim it will prevent an estimated £40m loss in retail sales by 2016 (what did I tell you?).
Now, here’s the kicker. Just in case you don’t like Wilson Bowden’s 1970s ‘Soviet-style’ design, a survey carried out by CEC claims the facilities provided are ‘twice as important as how it (the new town centre) will look’.
So, even if it’s grotesque, you’ll love it.
How about that for covering all the bases?
