In 1994, Dacorum Borough Council paid a large sum of taxpayers' money to a supposedly independent firm of consultants, who are as ignorant of Berkhamsted as the Borough Council is, to look at the problems facing Berkhamsted town centre. The consultants, Donaldsons', recommended the construction of a large foodstore on land owned by Dacorum Borough Council just outside the town centre. The working name for this site, situated off Lower Kings Road, was Kingsgate - appropriate for a scandal of regal proportions!
Donaldsons' tried to tell us that this new store would bring in more shoppers who would also visit town centre shops and thus attract more retailers to the town.
The proposal caused outrage amongst residents, who believed that the new store would only generate traffic and put more local retailers out of business. They demanded that the council carry out a survey of public opinion. Dacorum claimed that this would be too expensive. A local man offered to pay the cost, but Dacorum still refused.
A group of local people then organised their own survey of every fifteenth name on the electoral roll. It was endorsed as statistically valid by a former managing director of Gallup. It found that only a quarter of residents were in favour of the new store. Three quarters of local retailers also opposed the plan. They clearly did not believe that the new store would bring more trade for them.
Dacorum then held a so-called "Public consultation" evening at Berkhamsted Civic Centre - in other words a shabby and unsuccessful attempt to sell the plan to the public. Representatives of Dacorum and Waitrose acted like employees of the same organisation. The Waitrose representatives could be distinguished only by their brown jackets. Senior Waitrose management were conspicuous by their absence. They had pushed juinor staff into the front line to bear the brunt of public anger. It later emerged that Dacorum and Waitrose had exchanged contracts for the sale of the site earlier the same day, only seven days after the plans were released to the public. The statutory minimum consultation period for planning applications is 21 days.
Planning permission for the new store was granted early in 1995 by Dacorum with all-party support, though against the advice of its own conservation officer and of English Heritage. In the 1995 local elections, Independent candidates opposed to the scheme contested the thirteen seats on Berkhamsted Town Council and won eleven of them, ousting all the Conservatives and some of the Liberal Democrats who had voted in favour of Waitrose.
Unfortunately a change of control at Dacorum from Conservative to Labour failed to change the council's attitude. One lot of stuffed shirts replaced another; only the colour of their rosettes changed. So construction began.
The builders were faced with a problem. The intended goods entrance to the site, from Lower Kings Road, was too narrow to accommodate the five-axle articulated lorries which were to bring stock to the store. It could not be widened because of an adjacent Catalpa tree, otherwise known as an Indian Bean, which was protected by a Tree Preservation Order. A dangerous access which could not be widened without damaging a preserved tree would normally be grounds for refusal of planning permission, but a different solution was adopted in this case.
The tree was conveniently knocked down by a contractor working on the site, and the entrance was widened. There were subsequent claims that the tree was rotten, but a local gardener who examined the remains found that any rot was minimal. Both the John Lewis Partnership and Dacorum Borough Council are considerably more rotten than was the Catalpa tree.
The penalty for destroying a preserved tree is a fine of up to œ2000 and an order to plant a replacement on the same site. As far as I am aware, the contractor escaped punishment. A new Catalpa tree was planted, but on a site further from the access. The site of its predecessor is now occupied by a large Waitrose sign which gives the impression that the entire car park is for Waitrose customers only. In fact, most of it is owned by Dacorum Borough Council and is maintained at the taxpayers' expense.
The first replacement Catalpa died from lack of care. A second survived only because local volunteers watered it throughout a dry Summer.
In case the reader had not guessed, the authority responsible for enforcing planning legislation in Berkhamsted, including the protection of preserved trees, is Dacorum Borough Council.
The John Lewis Partnership also paid for a mini-roundabout to be installed where the main access road for car-borne shoppers, St. John's Well Lane, joins the High Street. The official explanation was that this was done to enable pedestrians to cross St. John's Well Lane more safely. In fact the extra traffic which it enables to use the road makes it more difficult and dangerous for pedestrians to cross. The real reason for the roundabout is that it enables Waitrose to get more customers into its store in a shorter period of time.
The mini-roundabout also took away the informal parking space outside a local newsagent's shop. He suffered a drop in trade and is now struggling to stay in business. Waitrose sells newspapers.
The new Waitrose opened its doors late in 1996. The fears of the objectors have since been fully realised. Waitrose is doing very nicely, but at the time of writing, June 2000, 27 local retailers have gone out of business since it opened, and only seven new retailers have come into the town. Traffic has increased. A subsequent survey, again by Donaldsons', showed that fewer people now walk in the High Street. In 1994, 50% of shoppers came to the town centre by car; in 1998 it was over 70%.
Meanwhile the ground floor of Waitrose's former, smaller, premises in the town centre still stands empty - another eyesore in the High Street. Waitrose will not allow any other food retailer to occupy it. The level of rent demanded by Waitrose - œ3000 per week plus another œ3000 in business rates - appears to be intended to keep the shop empty for the forseeable future.
The partiality of our local authorities towards Waitrose continues. St. John's Well Lane was recently resurfaced by Dacorum Borough Council at taxpayers' expense, while residential roads which are in a worse condition and have been waiting many years for repairs have still not been attended to. Road resurfacing is normally funded by Hertfordshire County Council; Dacorum Borough Council usually refuses to spend additional money from its own coffers, but was quite happy to stump up in this case.
When Closed-Circuit Television Cameras were erected in Berkhamsted, Dacorum Borough Council was careful to ensure that all the access routes and car parking surrounding Waitrose were covered, again at taxpayers' expense, while other locations preferred by local people were not. Repeated requests to the Borough Council for an explanation of the camera locations chosen were ignored.
Only a complete Borough Councillor would believe that the interests of Berkhamsted were a factor in this affair. Another explanation is called for. Try this.
Waitrose, and its parent company, the John Lewis Partnership, are run by the Freemasons. The company chairman, Stuart Hampson, has admitted on television that he is a Mason. (Modern Times, BBC2).
The then Chief Executive of Dacorum Borough Council, Keith Hunt, was also a Mason, as is the Director of Planning, Colin Barnard. So is Councillor Julian Taunton, who was leader of the council when the Kingsgate Scandal was pushed through.
The National Code of Local Government Conduct, issued by the Department of the Environment in 1990, states that councillors who have a private or personal interest in a question which they have to decide should declare this interest and then take no part in speaking or voting on the issue. Paragraph 9 on Page 5 states, "Private and personal interests include those of your family and friends, as well as those arising through membership of, or association with, clubs, societies and other organisations such as the Freemasons, trade unions and voluntary bodies". Councillor Taunton and many others failed to comply with this.
During the sham "Public consultation", Waitrose placed great emphasis on its claim to be a "caring" company. So far it has shown no sign of caring about anything except money.
The moral of the story: don't shop at Waitrose, or any other branch of the John Lewis Partnership. It is not the ethical organisation that it claims to be.