Duplicated letters diluted campaign group’s worries
WHILE today it is a place of work, a place to shop or maybe a place to eat and sleep, the story behind the retail park at Branston could have been very different.
During the planning stages the residents of Branston fought a valiant campaign against the proposals on their doorstep.
The Branston Action Neighbourhood Group (BANG) was formed as a pressure group to oppose the plans, however, it was bad news for the group when the proposal was given the go ahead in September 1988.
The plans were for land between Shobnall and Branston to be developed for retail and 700 homes.
The finer detail meant 24 acres would be devoted to non-food retail with 26 acres earmarked for leisure activities alongside housing and light industrial usage along Wellington Road.
Speaking after the decision, Branston Parish Council chairman Marie Boss said she believed the plans would have gone through at appeal anyway but hoped that residents would now have some control and input into the scheme.
Feeling some sympathy with the campaigners, councillors urged BANG to think about changing their tactics in the future.
Although the council had received more than 100 letters of objection, they were all duplicated using exactly the same words.
Councillor Syd Welton said more notice would have been taken of the objections if they had each used their own words and had each focussed on a separate area of objection.
One of the main objections to the scheme from the Burton Civic Society was that the out of town shopping would take trade away from the town centre.
By 1992 the scheme had grown again.
One of the largest developments in Burton’s history was announced in July 1992.
The Bass name had always been recognised with beer but now it was behind a £40m development to put Burton on the map.
It was hoped that by the year 2000, the development would be up and running and would have created 5,000 jobs,
And the name of this Bass project . . . Centrum 100. As the development would be 100 acres and was situated in the centre of England, the fitting name of Centrum 100 was chosen.
The development would take six years to complete and the town was promised a hotel, warehousing, industrial units and
showrooms.
As news of the multi-million pound plan was exclusively revealed by the Burton Mail in 1992, Bass launched a marketing drive to try and attract businesses to the area.
The managing director of Bass Developments at the time, Richard Allen, said: “We are showing a commitment to Burton as a centre for the future. Bass is committing quite a lot to put this show on the road.”
One of the first offices to be constructed was to be Bass Plc’s corporate service headquarters – a building still occupied by the firm under its hotel arm of Inter Continental Hotels Group.