Ambitious plans for ‘heart of town’ (From thisisoxfordshire)

Ambitious plans for ‘heart of town’

10:40am Sunday 27th December 2009

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PLANS will be submitted early next year for a scheme to create the “heart” of Carterton.

The multi-million pound project involves redeveloping almost five acres of the town centre.

For the past decade, Carterton Town Council has tried to breathe life into the centre of town, which has been criticised for not providing for its growing population.

Last week, Oxford-based developer, Box Clever Group, and Simons Developments, the company behind Witney’s Marriotts Walk, announced an agreement with the principal land owner in the centre of Carterton.

R & D Health Care, the owners of the old Market Site and the adjacent care home, has signed up to a deal with the developers to allow the site to be included together with land owned by the town and district councils, the Co-op, and Wadworths.

Plans include new shops, housing, and a supermarket. Builders could be on site by the end of 2010, with it opening in 2011.

Luke Pickering, director of Simons, said: “There will be a range of shops. It would be a centre as big as Marriotts Walk, but it will be a variety of shops.

“It should be the heart of the town. It’s right in the middle, and we have got to get people to spend their money here.”

Brad Andrews, of Box Clever Group, said: “It will enhance the vibrancy of the town centre.”

The plans will go out to public consultation in the coming months.

Harry Watts, who owns R & D Health Care, said: “The reason for choosing Simons is the quality of all they have done in Witney on Marriotts Walk. It looks like it has been part of the feature of the landscape as a permanent thing.

“It’s great to make a start on Carterton — we have suffered for a long, long time.”

The Beehive car park is included in the redevelopment scheme, while the pub will undergo a refurbishment.

Mr Andrews hopes that another supermarket will come to Carterton. He said that there was interest from all the major superstores.

Sainsbury’s submitted a planning application to create a 26,000 sqft supermarket at West Oxfordshire Retail and Business Park, in Upavon Way, which will be considered by West Oxfordshire District Council in January.

It has said 300 new jobs could be created, but Mr Pickering claimed that an out-of-town supermarket could scupper the town centre rejuvenation, as the scheme relied on an anchor store for the old market site, in Black Bourton Road.

Mr Pickering said: “It would scupper investment in the town centre, as there just wouldn’t be the amount of expenditure left for a viable town centre scheme.

“If you let a major store go out of town, this won’t happen, and the town would be redeveloped, but it wouldn’t be for retail use.”

When the Co-op sold the site, it created a restrictive covenant, which meant the land could not be used as a food store.

But now the Co-op has pledged to modify the covenant in a bid to get Sainsbury’s to consider the town centre site.

Adrian Coomber, of Carterton Town Council, said: “We welcome the interest from supermarkets.

“We would urge them to consider the town centre option first.”

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