A top retail expert has quit a council body seeking to boost city centre fortunes after councillors approved a new out-of-town retail park, including an Asda superstore.
Professor Leigh Sparks resigned from Stirling Council’s City Centre Working Group last week saying traders should feel “mightily let down” by the majority decision by the authority’s planning panel.
He later wrote a scathing online blog, criticising the four councillors on the six-member panel who had backed the development at Crookbridge despite a recommendation of refusal from planning officials.
Ramoyle Developments Ltd were granted permission for the new £20 million retail development south of the Wickes DIY store including offices, retail, drive-thru restaurant, car showroom and car parking which they said would net 250 full-time equivalent jobs and even be as many as 500-600 including construction jobs.
However in his blog Professor Sparks said: “A few months ago I was asked in the light of my review for the Scottish Government, my chairmanship of and work with Scotland’s Towns Partnership, my academic professional expertise and possibly from being a long-term resident of Stirling, to be a member of the council’s City Centre Working Group with an aim of helping to steer its revitalisation, and as part of a new focus from the council on improving the city centre.”
However, he said he had now resigned over the retail park decision, saying council officials and business people on the working group had been “badly let down”.
Professor Sparks is Professor of Retail Studies at Stirling University and also a deputy principal of the university, however stressed his views were his “personal and professional opinion”.
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He said the retail park decision “drove another stake into the heart of ambitions for national and local outcomes and the enhancement of health and wellbeing, economic and social development, climate change and sustainability”.
“The last thing the struggling Stirling city centre, especially coming out of the pandemic, needed was another car-focused development including an Asda, offices, car showroom and fast food and drive thru on a greenfield site further away from the heart of Stirling than any other previous development,” he added.
“Quite what those trying to regenerate and revitalise the city centre thought I do not know, but I would not be suprised if the Stirling BID (Business Improvement District) members and the new owners of the Thistles Centre feel mightily let down. I certainly do. The councillors seemed to have been swayed by a large job figure; something that previous experience tells us will not fully materialise and which is even less likely in post-pandemic retailing. If we are to be serious about our challenges, such developments as these no longer have a place. Stirling councillors backed a development designed to add more traffic and do more harm to people, the planet and the economy, locally and beyond. It beggars belief.
“I see little future success for the group when members of the council are so eager to damage the place and to defy national priorities and all commonsense.
“I hope those left prove me wrong and Stirling city centre can recover. I wish them well, but my frustration should be obvious. At least I have more time to spend with towns that are grasping a positive future.”
A Stirling Council spokesperson said this week: “The application was approved by members of the planning and regulation planel by four votes to two. This decision was made contrary to the recommendation of officers, which was to refuse the application.”
Council planning officials had said not enough up-to-date information had been used to show there would not be a negative impact on the city centre. Seventeen objections were also lodged, including from Springkerse Retail Park II and the Thistles shopping centre.
Representatives for the applicants, however, had said up-to-date factors had been taken into account and there was no likely prospect of securing the long stipulated bulky goods retail on the site, which had been marketed unsuccessfully for more than a decade.
