Don't turn away 300 jobs says Scunthorpe Moving Forward group supporting retail park with Marks & Spencer

“Well what can you say about this newly formed geriatrics group Scunthorpe Moving Forward...I listened to the David Burns radio show the other morning, and the representative JOY LIVERLAND was an absolute joke! All you care about Liverland is your M&S prawn sandwich, along with your group members. What you don't realise is, that you are truly a minority of people who want that monstrosity of a development to go ahead. You don't care about the town centre, and to say that if the development opened you would get in your car and drive to the town centre and spend your last few pennies in a few of the stores is an absolute load of bunkem.

You said on the radio that you lived in Bottesford, and also other members of your group live in Messingham etc, well can I tell you what you are doing as a minority group...you are tarring the villages that you all live in with the same brush. If you were to be truthful about the situation, 95% of the people in the villages that your group live in DO WANT M&S back in Scunthorpe, but not on a massive retail park that would kill the town centre. So it is quite simple, Mrs Liverland, and your colleagues, STOP being SELFISH, and thinking of YOUR OWN shopping habits and needs. And think about the vast majority of people in North Lincolnshire who want Scunthorpe Town Centre to survive for future generations. As I said all of your members live in affluent villages and have disposable income to spend in the daytime when others have to go to work. Not once in your interview on the radio did you show any consideration or concerns for the residents that live in the immediate vicinity of the PROPOSED development. What a living nightmare they will experience whilst the PROPOSED development site would be demolished and whilst the PROPOSED development was under construction.

Quite simple...you and your zimmer frame organisation just do not care about anybody else but yourselves.

Looking at ALL the people in your photograph, I'm surprised that you haven't submitted your own planning application to build a M&S elderly residential home, you could then have your own franchise of Simply M&S food. This would then achieve what you are all looking for! The worst thing you could have ever done was to bring yourselves out in the press the way you have done! Because believe you me, there are tens of thousands of people against you now for your selfish attitude! And again Mrs Liverland, can I refer you to the Scunthorpe Telegraph viewpoint page when you first wrote in, to try and support this pathetic Simons development, I believe you called the people who were against it (in their many thousands) selfish...and these were your words Mrs Liverland...what I suggest you should do is look in the mirror...but then again because you could have 7 years bad luck!

So tell me, if you were a betting person...do you really believe that the judge will give the go ahead? I think I can answer that for you...you really don't believe he will! And that is why you have come out at the last minute in the public domain...to try and rally support from the members of the public! Well I can tell you now, you have FAILED MISERABLY.

Have a lovely Christmas around your fire, in your lovely affluent village/town, eating your M&S minced pies. And by the way...did you buy them with the gift vouchers that M&S gave you all?

"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, In the lane, snow is glistening, A beautiful sight, We're happy tonight. Walking in a Winter LITHERLAND!..."

Can't wait to meet you one day, Mrs Liverland...I look forward to giving you another piece of my mind face to face!

Merry Christmas!!!!”

“Joy Litherland, of Bottesford, said:

"If we get the big shops, we will shop at the smaller stores in the town as well."
...
So what's wrong with those smaller stores at present then, obviously not up to your high standards? What a jumped up twerp, "Fur coat & no knickers" springs to mind!!
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by Mozart
probably the same lot of prats that never supported the old one in town or they went in once or twice a year and hoped that would keep the store going.
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Well said that person.”

“Those wishing the government would "do something" should be careful what they wish for. Government usually does the wrong thing.”

“Don't worry, be happy, we are an Island and as such will return to having our own manufacturing and farming industries . . . . once the price of oil has reached the stage where it is no longer profitable to import all the goods INTO this country

Currently even the basic foodstuffs (and ingredients) are cheaper to import than grow here, it can't last, just wait for the good times to return.

oh, obviously it will be dependent on some idiot in a foreign country not hitting the big red button when the world finances go askew LOL”

“Most of the clowns jumping up and down and pulling their hair out just because the proposed new store and development hasn't been started yet are probably the same lot of prats that never supported the old one in town or they went in once or twice a year and hoped that would keep the store going.You're all hot air like this project blah! blah! blah!”

“Att Angrier
Take our point about too many empty industrial units that are unoccupied around Scunthorpe, my point was our elected representatives local and national should be doing everything possible to encourage full time fairly paid work is available for all. From your comment you seem to saying we as a nation should be relishing the race to the bottom with low pay and worsening working conditions, probably we should be happy to see our children and grand children having to live in shanty towns within 50 years eh? After all you are saying we should embrace competition, the only way to embrace competition is to eventually lower the UK standard of living for most UK people. You are also happy to see most of the money spent in the UK eventually going out of the UK to China / India to pay working kids to make clothes are you? A fair percentage of UK retail trade especially clothing / white goods and home furnishings are based on borrowing and debt to fund the west's addiction to consumerism. Our UK elected representatives have the means to adopt / make policies that should ensure our way of life, standards of living for the benefit of all, but with a short sighted and only thinking of tomorrow attitude like yours there is no wander that the country is in the dreadful position that it is today. Go have a coffee at a well known coffee chain that pays no UK tax and while you are there go on the internet and purchase your Christmas presents from a well known internet site that also pays no UK tax as well, after all these firms are competing and not dying aren't they? The problem with the UK and for the most part the rest of the world economy is the fact that most working people have not got spare spending capacity to boost the economies due mainly to low wages caused by the greed of some companies and competition with third world economies.”

“John John,
so the council should build a big factory and produce solar panels?
Your grasp of economics is astounding.....
Sounds a bit like a communist planned economy.
Well lets just ignore the currrent oversupply in solar panels as led by the Chinese , which is actually putting western companies out of business and maybe instead focus on the fact that there are already plenty of empty large factories in this town.
Darby glass , Mondi packaging .... soon to be Kimberley Clark nearby.
Worse still the council already have built a brand new factory / warehouse near Nisa. Spanking new state of the art been there about 4 years not a sniff of interest ....

But you turn your nose up at "low" paid jobs.... thats the problem so did the rest of the country and now all those (rose tinted glasses) fantastic manufacturing jobs have left these shores for China et al where they will work in low paid jobs and hence instead of "low paid" jobs we have unemployment..... you either compete or you die. The same applies to the shops in town. Either they offer what the public wants or they close you can't stop that by trying to prevent competition.
It still does not force the public to buy anything from Scunny High Street they will just go elsewhere , or on line - as Des knows and exploits only too well.
Or perhaps you can bring back communist principles altogether and issue ration books for council sponsored products available from local shops only.....”

“@ Hazzers - The kodak shop is closing due to it no longer being a viable business model. End of story....”

“With two weeks to the beginning of the Judicial hearing something tells me that the developers propaganda department has again swung into action. Next week we'll be being told that Harrods and Harvey Nicks have been added too the list of stores that are suddenly desperate to open a store in our high wage earning town!! More than likely, though, the retired teachers, nurses and public sector workers in the picture have all be promised a handful of store vouchers and a free meal in the M&S Café.

I particularly liked the comment by Liz Tyers,

"If you have got an ounce of common sense, you wouldn't believe we are having to battle to get something that is going to rejuvenate a town that has lost employment."

Well, Liz, if you had bothered to read and follow this ongoing case from the start then you would know that the objections made have absolutely nothing to with stopping M&S, or any other store, from coming to Scunthorpe and is EVERYTHING about the NLC Planning Committee breaking/ignoring/showing contempt for almost every single planning rule and regulation so as to facilitate this developer. Funny, now, how they have used those same rules to stop developments on their own doorsteps, i.e. Tesco in Winterton and a fast food outlet in Barton but, not, in Scunthorpe.”

“If M&S offer free car parking and a free bus service into town centre we could go to M&S complex, leave our cars there and take free bus into town to go to market and other shops then return on free bus to M&S free car park, good compremise.
They might be able to build a few more outlets on that spare land on the right as you go up the hill on doncaster road.”