Sainsbury’s officially announce proposals for Marlborough store

Sainsbury’s has today officially announced that it will be submitting a planning application to build a food store on the Wiltshire Council depot site on Salisbury Road, Marlborough.

The proposed food store would be the first Sainsbury’s in the area. The 15,000 sq ft store would stock a range of foods, with lines including Basics and Taste the Difference.

Sainsbury’s say the new store would create 80-100 jobs. They add that nationally 92% of Sainsbury’s colleagues live within 1.5 miles of the stores in which they work and that Sainsbury’s would be looking to recruit local people for the Marlborough store.

Jamie Baker, Regional Development Executive for Sainsbury’s, said:

“Marlborough’s a great town. We’ve been eager to open a store here and bring choice in weekly shopping to the area for a long time. However, suitable sites are at a premium. We’ve been monitoring the situation and the Council depot has only just become available.

We work hard to develop our product range which is able to meet demand in Marlborough for a food store that offers an affordable weekly shop. For example, Sainsbury’s Basics, which has over 700 products, competes with other retailers on price without compromising on quality, helping the budget conscious shopper to lower the cost of their weekly shop.

We’re pleased to be part of a debate that will determine the future of food retail in Marlborough. It’s important that the proposals are right for the town and we are looking forward to speaking with the community over the coming weeks.”

A planning application submitted by Tesco for a site on the nearby Marlborough Business Park, had been given the official position of “No objection”, by Marlborough Town Council. The application had been due to be considered by Wiltshire Council at a meeting next Thursday, February 25th, but a revised Tesco application is now due to be discussed on March 18th.

Melanie Chiswell, Regional Corporate Affairs Manager for Tesco, has been involved in the Tesco application from the early stages and spoke at a special Town Council meeting which was opened up to the public in Marlborough Town Hall in the summer. Ms. Chiswell said today,

“We are still committed to bringing people in Marlborough the store they asked us for.

We have worked really hard with the local community. We have carried out an extensive public consultation and obviously would like to build this store as soon as possible. Any delay would be unfortunate for the community who have supported us all along.”

Lisa Farrell, who has been leading the Marlborough Matters campaign to bring Tesco to Marlborough said today,

“I’m not unhappy about Sainsbury’s coming to Marlborough, it’s how they have gone about it.

I feel that the Marlborough people have come together to fight for a Tesco store and it’s taken a year for us to get this far. We have done it the right way, with a lot of talking and meetings, and suddenly Wiltshire find things wrong with the planning application. This amazes me when they have had the plans for a long time.

It feels to me as though Tesco and people of Marlborough have done all the hard work for Sainsbury’s to come in and stop everything that we have all worked hard for. Also no one seems to worry about how it will affect the people who live in Priors Field.”

A representative from Wiltshire Council Press Office said,

“At this point we have not received a planning application from Sainsbury’s.”

Andrew Guest from Wiltshire Council commented in more detail on the Tesco Application,

"The Tesco application has been held up due to concerns with the Transport Assessment which was submitted as part of the original submission. There was also no noise assessment submitted as part of the original submission to assess the impact on the agreed but not commenced live/work and residential units at the Salisbury Road depot site.  

The local planning authority has now received a revised Transport Assessment and a noise assessment from Tesco and there will be a fourteen day consultation period for the revised documents with all interested parties.  A decision could not have been made without these revisions to the Tesco application.

It has always been the local planning authority's aim to get the application to the earliest possible Planning Committee meeting after the consultation period. Assuming no further problems arise with the application the next possible Planning Committee meeting date after expiry of the consultation period will be March 18th.”