Friday 18 January 2013

The New Sainsburys at Westwood Cross Thanet and possibly more rambling.



I guess most people will know that the new extra large Thanet Sainsbury’s got planning permission this week at 155,000 square feet that makes it about 100 times the size of my bookshop, so one very large shop.

 1  this is the picture from Sainsbury's website I will add a few more maps and plans for people like me who may be a bit on the dim side when it comes to visualising what we are going to get.

2   this first one covers the general area

these next two a bit more zoomed in
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5 The red lines show where the outside walls will go

the next two are pictures of the outside walls 

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7 I guess over the years as supermarkets have become larger, so that one eventually has to spend a considerable amount of ones leisure time in an air hanger sized shed, I have slowly realised how much I detest them. 



Reading the first comment made me realise that I hadn’t been clear enough in this post, so for clarity a new map with coloured lines on it.



The blue square is the existing Sainsbury supermarket, which will be demolished.

The red square is where the new Sainsbury supermarket will be built.

The green line is the new road intended to relive the traffic chaos at Westwood Cross.
  

8 Hopefully the map below is closer to accurate, see comments.
9

29 comments:

  1. Thanks for this as I couldn't visualise it either. I'm still confused. Is the new store the thing that looks like a flying saucer when you stand out in front of Primark and look left ... and what's the new store/building opposite the entrance to westwood x? And why doesn't the TDC/local paper tell us these things?

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    1. OK Chuck I have added another map at the bottom of the post and put coloured lines on it to show you what is what, there is no new Sainsbury as the haven’t built it yet any flying saucer there at the moment is probably caused by aliens doing their shopping.

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    2. It's on the front page of today's Isle of Thanet Gazette Chuck!

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    3. Peter I haven’t managed to get a Gazette yet so I didn’t realise, I hope they have done a better job of explaining it than I have.

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  2. Maybe it's the Argos aliens from Margate now that their store has closed there.

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  3. Anyone any idea how the 155,000 square feet of this new Sainsbury's compares to say Tesco Extra, Asda and the existing Sainsbury?

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  4. Why spend hours going from one end of a supermarket to the other. Do your grocery shop on-line. Check out the special offers in one click rather than the hit and miss methods of checking the shelves. Add you regular items in no time at all. Take out a delivery season and each delivery can cost aa low as £2.30 including weekend deliveries. And you wont be tempted by those end of ailse placements. Dont talk to me about children with dirty shoes sitting in the trollies or other trolly hygene issues.

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    1. It's still far more convenient than going from one end of a high street to the other & buying these things in seperate grocers, butchers, greengrocers, bakers, newsagents, hardware shops, off licences, etc (how many people under 30 have ever shopped like that?)... That's why big supermarkets are so popular.

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  5. Think you need to have another look at your explanatory map Michael. Heaven forbid that you mislead anyone.

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    1. Think you need to point out what's wrong with it or shut up 8:21.

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    2. Think you are right there is something wrong with it, I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow, hopefully the Gazette has done a better job than I have.

      I think the new Tesco should be further down than I have it, any help appreciated.

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    3. That's a bit forthright Peter, but I'll try to explain although if you can’t see it I probably won’t be able to explain.

      Michael has drawn a green road which passes through the Stagecoach garage and runs off across the fields towards Haine. The Sainsbury plan shows a new road from the existing roundabout on the existing New Haine Road through to the existing roundabout on the Margate Road, completely avoiding the bus garage. A minor issue I know, demolishing a bus garage and relocating a main road through farmland, but I thought it worth mentioning. Thankfully they appear to be avoiding McDonalds!

      Michael admitted that he’s not too good at visualising these things so why he’s tried explaining it to the rest of the world I don’t quite understand.

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    4. Anon I think a major aspect of having a blog with open comments is that I read them in this case yours and hopefully improve my understanding of issues, I have put up another map which may be closer to the truth, what do you think?

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    5. You're getting there Michael. The new road joins the existing New Haine Road roundabout at its South Eastern exit and curves round to the new roundabout which is virtually on top of the current Sainsbury building. Coming from Haine along the existing New Haine Road you will arrive a the (currently) last of the existing roundabouts and turn right towards the proposed roundabout.

      The problem with finding this difficult to understand is one of spatial awareness, which in turn is the product of context awareness, geographic awareness, and ubiquitous cartography or Ubiquitous Geographic Information (UBGI)(thank you Wikipedia). I suggest this is nothing a glass or two of red wine won't cure!

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  6. to late at night to understand I have been in bed all day not feeling well and this has confused me. I mmust say I DONt shop any more but used to like Sainsbury.

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  7. Have a feeling the red box in the lower photo should be sitting on the footprint of the Antolin building, rather than behind it - I assumed from the plans on show in Sainsbury's a while back that the new road and roundabout would be sitting more or less directly on the site of the current shop. I seem to recall they'd hoped to squeeze a hotel in there too.

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  8. They started building several weeks ago.

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    Replies
    1. There are reams of documents on the ukplanning website, link on the sidebar, the planning ref is F/TH/12/0781 with it being Saturday, I am at work so don’t have time to play about with the drawings there.

      If anyone wants to have a go this is more difficult than you would expect as most of their maps and diagrams aren’t orientated with north at the top, so not only do you have to get them out of pdf format and into image format, you also need to rotate them before you can consider layering them on top of actual identifiable maps or photos.

      Also there is the problem that some of the documents don’t seem open at all, I have put numbers under the illustrations in the post No5 is taken from the planning application and I think would probably layer over the map.

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  9. I think that everything is part of the development and growth of the New Sainburys.

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  10. Appalling sprawl approved by TDC. The councillors seem to be doing their best to continue the mess at WC and 4th town centre drivel.

    The Duffers have simply destroyed the town centres, created sprawl and traffic jobs for few/minimum wage jobs.

    The upcoming elections allow for pledges on reversing this mess from our sheep-councillors.

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  11. Anonymous 11:22,

    Why do you assume that those who disagree with you are automatically 'duffers'?

    Personally, I find WC to be a convenient, easy and pleasant place to shop. One can park the car for free, shop, have a meal, play Bingo, go to the cinema and stroll in the adjacent fields. In your view does this automatically make me a drivel talking duffer?

    What is it specifically that you dislike about WC?

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    Replies
    1. John, our old anonymous friend specialises in insulting names for anyone who does not share his jaundiced view of how life should be. He knows no other way of debating and it is how he gets his kicks. Don't waste your time with him.

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    2. Tom,

      When I lived in London there was a strange man who used stand outside Tesco shouting abuse at passers by.

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  12. Thank you, Michael, for your work in showing the different plans. Your blog came up first when I googled "Westwood Cross Highway Plans" and I feel you have done the work for me!
    I must say I loved the (deliberate?) typo saying the new road will " relive chaos " . I agree that the new road will re- live the existing chaos because everyone will come out onto the tiny Margate Road!

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  13. Thank you, Michael, for your work in showing the different plans. Your blog came up first when I googled "Westwood Cross Highway Plans" and I feel you have done the work for me!
    I must say I loved the (deliberate?) typo saying the new road will " relive chaos " . I agree that the new road will re- live the existing chaos because everyone will come out onto the tiny Margate Road!

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  14. The main problem with westwood cross is that pedestrians who want to go to and fro from any of the main stores, need to cross the roads. An elevated walkway accross the main roads would allow the traffic to move without stopping and backing up causing gridlock and be much safer for all.

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  15. So they build the new sainsburys but take half of jacky bakers playing field to do it how can the council sell off public open space

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  16. Hi I would like to see a Hand Car Wash same as Tesco Extra that is the best way to get more customers while customers will be able to get more services for they trips.

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  17. The con artists in the TDC have allowed not only allowed the traditional Jackie Baker's site to be raped and downsized, they have permitted the recent extension(cricket pitch)to be dismembered.How the TDC was allowed to alter JB's in this manner in the first place should be duly investigated by an independent authority. The people of Thanet were scammed by TDC. Shame on them, and equally shame on us for acquiescing so passively to this sort of underhanded gerrymandering chicanery.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.