Rumours abounded for a while, but late last year we found out that ASDA wants a new supermarket in Longton, and the site chosen is the former Somerfield store off Spring Garden Road. A public exhibition took place over the weekend, and firm planning proposals are expected to be submitted in the next few weeks.
Having visited the exhibition last week, I have some outstanding concerns about the impact on the surrounding road network, both from my own knowledge of the area but also as the councillor of a ward where a similar planning situation arose a number of years ago, and continues to impact the area.
But do we need another supermarket in Longton? Some residents don’t believe we do and that the impact of another supermarket will kill Longton town centre once and for all. The development of the Baths Road site for Tesco Extra elicited the same concerns. When I first came to live in the Longton area ten years ago, Market Street and the Bennett Precinct nearby were busy, with The Strand being the part of town I didn’t really bother with. The situation has reversed now – and whilst Tesco can claim some credit for reinvigorating the northern part of Longton, the economic situation is largely responsible for the closure of Woolworths and many of the estate agents that flourished in Market Street.
One concern of mine in recent years is that the increased development around the northern part of Longton, particularly with the Phoenix Park now well on the way to completion, the developments in the south and south west of the town, especially the Wilkinsons and Matalan developments were becoming increasingly isolated from the ‘busier’ northern area of the town. However, a new ASDA store which will be just a short walk from The Strand and Commerce Street, could lead to a reinvigoration of the southern part of Longton, and also the small shops along Trentham Road. Certainly, the business owners I have spoken to in this area are keen to see ASDA develop the Spring Garden Road site as they see it only bringing benefits to their businesses in terms of increased footfall.
But the implications of the development of the Spring Garden Road site is about more than just impact on other businesses – the site may be bordered on one side by the A50 and its slip road, but the other is a mixture of housing, light industrial and schools. Having had a small supermarket on the site previously, these near neighbours do have an idea of what is likely to happen should ASDA develop the area, however on a far greater scale. And this is where a great deal of concern arises, as the roads in this area have become increasingly busy in recent years and are really not up to the drastic increase in users the supermarket is very likely to draw in. Of course, ASDA do realise this and are prepared to make some improvements, but are they enough?
ASDA’s main improvement is to change the roundabout directly outside the new store, where it joins Trentham Road to a traffic light-controlled junction, which of course will help with the traffic flow – however what about the traffic before it reaches this point? Along with many others, my most direct route to the new ASDA will be down the A50 and off at the sliproad at the bottom of Lightwood Road. This is where my experiences in Meir Park start to tell me there might be trouble ahead.
The access to Tesco and B&Q in Meir Park is via the Meir Park/Blythe Bridge roundabout off the A50, which then funnels traffic up Lysander Road a short distance to a smaller roundabout, with exits for Tesco and Whittle Road (where the entrances of Aldi and B&Q are). If you follow Whittle Road along, it turns sharply right after a while and then joins the A50. The development of the area off Whittle Road has to some degree been hampered by this traffic arrangement that sees heavy traffic flow at the bottom of Lysander Road into the various retail and leisure premises (including the Weathervane pub and McDonalds, along with Tesco, B&Q and Aldi) and also into the estate of Meir Park itself (approx 1700 residences). When developers have looked at the Johnson Matthey/Cooksons site at the end of Whittle Road, local residents have naturally been concerned about the impact of more traffic on the A50 roundabout and Lysander Road, which already often sees backed up traffic during busy times of the week, and have suggested access to the Whittle Road site from this minor junction. Having asked the question myself, the response is that the sliproad to this junction is too short for the sort of lorries likely to be using it. Whilst this is not an insurmountable problem (the Johnson Matthey site does now have planning permission, though this incorporates a number of traffic improvements around Whittle Road), it does reflect the fact that when the site was originally developed, the scope of future development was not considered.
I suspect few considered the likely future developments in Longton when the Lightwood sliproad was put in, however I would certainly expect it to be something ASDA considered in their improvements. Strangely, however, when I asked about whether the small Lightwood Road roundabout could cope with the increase in traffic, I was told it could and no improvements were currently suggested for it. Now frequent users like me will know how ‘short’ the sliproad is onto the roundabout, and I would hazard a guess that it will only take six or more cars being slow getting onto the small roundabout, and traffic will be tailing back onto the A50!
If you are heading to ASDA from the opposite direction, driving up the A50 past the Britannia Stadium, you will need to take the Longton sliproad. Yes, the one just before Tesco Extra, that is already often congested – and that is before the Phoenix Park developments open, which boasts several new stores, a fastfood outlet and a new pub. You would then travel along the road past Matalan to the roundabout at the top of The Strand. Anyone who, like me, travels around this area, will know how it is not unusual to experience a short delay at this roundabout.
Of course, we can’t really blame ASDA for the inadequacies of the road network around Longton, though it should remind local councillors that we need to remember that there is more to regeneration than the ‘shiny shiny’ new store. It will be interesting to see how the ASDA store plans develop, particularly any changes made as a result of the public exhibition – certainly, I have suggested that work on the A50 sliproad needs to be considered, and intend to monitor the situation closely.
You can keep up to date with developments for ASDA Longton here.
