So planning permission has been granted for the conversion of Jardines Bowling centre into a shop, I don’t normally do this but I’m going to quote a Tory Councillor, Tom Hunter-Watts, from his comment on the Bucks Herald website, “It became clear that Jardines had no future as a business”, now having sat upon the Aylesbury Town Council planning committee I find this an interesting planning view, the argument should be along the lines of, is this space a Leisure space, or a Retail space, not is Jardines struggling financially, if that is the criteria then most of the shops and businesses in the town would fail Mr Hunter-Watts test, and close.

In another part of his reply on The Bucks Herald website he also states “We could have refused the application, the bowling club would still have closed and we would have been left with vacant premises for an indefinite period – and there are enough vacant premises in this town as it is” well who is to say that this new shop, tucked away as it will in all probability be, will be empty for some time anyway, particularly given the current dreadful economic climate.

Another  part of the argument is about providing financial help to Jardines, now obviously AVDC shouldn’t provide any help to struggling businesses, except for the massive subsidy to the private company running the theatre, (In fairness the Civic Centre received a subsidy, but this was run by AVDC so the money stayed in the area), or the new Waitrose & Travelodge developments, or the Enterprise academy, or Aqua Vale and the Swan Pool, all of these are given hefty support from the Council Tax payer, all are run by private companies or trusts, so where do we draw the line?

One of the things that AVDC, the Tory controlled District Council could and should be doing is helping to ensure that business rents in our town are reasonable, I know several people who have tried to run shops  in Aylesbury, several have had to admit defeat, not just because of business reasons, but rents in our town are very high, landlords aren’t doing badly, unless of course they have a lot of empty shop space, and are creating more.

So yet again Aylesbury will lose another local company, we will lose a local leisure facility, but gain another empty shop which will in all probability struggle to find a tenant, this wasn’t an easy decision to make I’m sure, but I have to fundamentally disagree with this decision, our town is poorer for it, competitor towns of Aylesbury must be laughing their socks off.

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