Where did the jobs go?

The new Sainsburys at Meols Cop has been officially opened by the town’s MP, but his predecessor John Pugh, now a Sefton councillor, who opposed the plan and triggered a planning inquiry over the development has still got his concerns and continues to voice them.

“ I really don’t want to be a dismal jimmy about this,” he says ,” and am more than happy to be proved wrong but I fret about the town centre. It’s rare to find our Conservative MP and Labour run Sefton Council equally warm about this out of town development and signed up on the same page, but I fear they may not have read the small print.

The town centre and particularly Lord St used to be famous for high quality shopping and seems neglected in Sefton Council’s plans. It is actually acknowledged by the Council that the new store will lead to a trade diversion of at least £7.9M from town centre turnover, but my fear is that the impact will not be ‘limited’ as they claim. Other new stores will cluster around the a bright new shiny supermarket. More people will use their cars to shop out of town.”

We need an updated assessment of the retail health of the town centre, but more importantly a retail strategy that makes sense. At the moment the Council’s efforts are expended simply on making it easier to cycle into town and harder to take the car. A reality check is needed.

As it is the Sainsbury development was give the go-ahead on the assumption it would provide 400 new jobs.This week the actual figure is 150 new jobs and we do not really know how many corresponding jobs are being lost in the town centre. I definitely applaud every new job but also notice that all the measures of employment in our area have remained in recent months stubbornly unchanged as has the unemployment (claimant) rate.