Agenda item

Members of the community will receive a presentation on the new Sainsbury’s development on Melton Road, Rushey Mead. Bob Keys who is part of the project team responsible for delivering the new development will be present along with other representatives also involved in the development.  Members of the community will have an opportunity to look at the site plan and find out about the forthcoming building programme. There will also be a question and answer session at the end of the presentation.

Bob will also invite interested members of the community to be part of a small liaison group to meet with the builders whilst the programme is in progress.

Members of the community received a presentation on the new Sainsbury’s Development on Melton Road, Rushey Mead. A copy of this presentation is attached to the back of these minutes.

Representatives from Sainsbury’s included Alex Shearer (Sainsbury’s Project Manager), Darryl Stace (Project Manager from the construction company), Tom Issitt (Community Liaison Representative) and Bob Keys (Public Affairs Liaison).  The timeline for the development was outlined and together they made the following points:

·         The site would include an area for commercial and industrial units.

·         There would be landscaping around the site and Sainsbury’s were looking for a local company to carry out this work.

·         Although the store was not open 24 hours, the site would be secure as people would be working on the site behind the scenes, even when the store was closed to members of the public.

·         The store on Melton Road would be Sainsbury’s first carbon zero project.

·         The store would advertise job vacancies online and all recruitment would be carried out on line. Sainsbury’s would work with the job centre and it was aimed to provide job opportunities for local people.

·         It was aimed to commence the recruitment process during July or August, but this would depend on the progress of the new build programme.

The following concerns and comments were raised by members of the community:

·         The road works by the new Sainsbury’s site on Melton Road, in particular the lane closure had resulted in long queues of traffic from as early as 7.00am. A request was made for the lane to be kept open until 9.00am when the rush hour and school traffic had eased, at least until the start of the school holidays.  Members of the community requested that there should be clear communications between Sainsbury’s and local people, particularly in relation to highways issues.

Bob Keys acknowledged that it was important to ensure that local people were kept informed on such issues and offered to put information on the website that had been created for the new store.

·         Local residents had been informed of the times during which the building work would be carried out, but work had been done outside the appointment time which had created a noise nuisance.

Darryl Stace apologised for this and explained that this issue had already been raised. It was acknowledged that a mistake had been made and residents were advised that this should not  happen again.

·         A nuisance had been caused by dust created by the building work on site.

Darryl Stace explained that the measures that were being put into place should alleviate this problem.  Members of the community were asked to contact Sainsbury’s if there were any further problems over dust or noise.

·         A local resident who lived very close to the site explained that from his house, he was now looking onto a pile of rubbish and dust.

Darryl Stace responded that he would be on the site the following day and would investigate this issue.

·         It would be sad to see trees being felled. For many years, there were always Christmas lights on the trees there.

Tom Issitt responded that many people had talked about the Christmas lights at Thorn Lighting and he would pass that information on. It was acknowledged that the Christmas lights were part of the identity of the site.

·         Could there be a more interesting layout in the car park?

The meeting heard that there were many factors to consider when planning a car park. The car park plans would be made available for members of the public to view on the website and people were invited to look at the plans and submit their comments.

·         It has been mentioned that there will be units available on site. What will be going into these units?

The meeting heard that they would be available for commercial and industrial use and could be made to a variety of different sizes. Sainsbury’s agent would be dealing with these – if people were interested in using one of the units, they were asked to contact Tom Issitt who would be able to put them in touch with the agent.

·         Will waste be incinerated on or off site?

The meeting heard that waste would be taken away; there would be no incineration on site.

·         How would Sainsbury’s try to employ local people?

Bob Keys explained that Sainsbury’s would be using the local job centre to recruit. They were not allowed to discriminate in favour of local people but generally their stores were populated by local people, as typically in retailing, employees did not want to travel more than 20 minutes to get to work. The store would create 300 new jobs, which would be in addition to the employees who would transfer from the Belgrave Road store. 

Members of the community were advised that they could phone Tom Issitt on Freephone 0800 975 5299 if they had any queries about the new development.

Information could also be viewed on the website at:

www.sainsburys-leicester.co.uk

The Chair thanked the representatives from Sainsbury’s for attending the meeting and asked for more information to be posted on their website, as this would be helpful for local people.