Blues stadium
'Stadium shops will ruin town'
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| Bill Harkness |
THE shopping area proposed at Fossetts Farm would devastate High Street trade, according to the man behind the £23million transformation of Victoria shopping centre.
Bill Harkness, managing director of Delamere Estates, said approving the stadium and its 16,400 sq m of out-of-town shops, as now seems likely, would be "a bad decision and a blight on the town centre".
He said: "I'm absolutely appalled such an enormous amount of out-of-town retail development can be given permission, given everything being done to try to revitalise and regenerate the town.
"It is going to have a dramatic and devastating effect on shopping in the town. We are entering a really bad retail climate and the last thing we need is more out-of-town shops. When we put in £23million into refurbishing the shopping centre, we were just wasting our time. It is a terrible blow."
Mr Harkness has called for Southend Council to stick by its original planning condition, which barred existing town centre traders from moving to the new development within five years.
He added: "They said it and should stick to it. It should be part of the section 106 agreement. They should also insist the stadium should be completed before any retail is built.
"The justification of the retail area was that it would be the stadium which came first, enabling development afterwards."
Mr Harkness said he was pleased the club was to get a new stadium, but questioned the need for such a large complex.
He added: "I'm delighted that the stadium has been granted, but how Southend are going to fill 22,000 seats, I don't know."
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