45 objections and 1,004 strong signature petition against sale of land by Wirral Council in Upton to LIDL for £820,000
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.
By John Brace (Editor) and Leonora Brace (Co-Editor)
First publication date: 10th February 2021, 14:00 (GMT).
In an update to Wirral Council councillors dismiss environmental concerns of residents over proposed £820,000 sale of land in Upton for new LIDL supermarket the consultation (on both sale of the land and its change of use) finished on the 8th January 2021.
There were 45 objections to Wirral Council which can all be read on the excellent whatdotheyknow.com website, the first tranche (1-25) can be read by following this link and the second tranche (26-45) at this link.
Some of the objections (for example objection 1) refer to a valuation of the land at £3,022,050 (the report to the councillors had valued the land at £NIL), the land being marketed for £2,100,000 and the proposed sale price of £820,000.
For anyone keeping track of DCLG circulars (now called the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) circular 06/03 gave a general consent for councils to sell at a price under what is valued of up to £2 million. So clearly that is a point that needs to be cleared up.
The rest of the objections are on broad themes ranging from traffic, air quality, impact on retail in Upton Village, trying to reduce car usage (rather than encourage it), the potential loss of the footpath, the restrictive covenant on the land and various other either environmental or planning objections.
A running theme throughout the objections is that it appeared to some of the objectors that Wirral Council (having declared a climate emergency after many protests at Wallasey Town Hall) in deciding to sell this land is in some way going against its agreed principles or policy.
Clearly, it is a well used (and well loved) patch of green space by local residents and there is also in some of the objections references to what happened in the past about the loss of green space to the large supermarket development and massive car park on the other exit from the roundabout which means some of the objectors argue that this is another reason why the LIDL development is not needed.
The associated petition of objection has over 1,004 signatures, so clearly there are people that feel strongly about the issue (who may not have known about the associated consultation).
I’d be interested to read comments and people’s views, or any questions people may have about what happens next.
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.
Lidl will employ people, planning will be passed, simples!
Sorry but that’s the way it goes!
Thanks for your comment.
We shall see what happens. Although if people are employed by a new Lidl supermarket at this location, those workers will probably be shop workers who lost their jobs elsewhere as a Lidl there would be highly likely to lead to shops closing and going out of business in nearby Upton Village.