Tescos Tunnel Collapse

Another quote from SBFPress

The Tesco tunnel at Gerrards Cross

PEOPLE from Gerrards Cross accused county councillors of not listening, after members agreed Tesco could continue to bring in building materials by rail for its new store over the railway line near Gerrards Cross station.

The Tesco project had brought them misery, villagers said. They were living on a building site; things were intolerable; and there was no end in sight .

Work on the store came to a halt in June, when the tunnel being built over the Chiltern Line at Gerrards Cross, on top of which the Tesco store would be built, collapsed.

Villagers who had never wanted the new store in the first place, hoped this would be the end of the project.

Work has still not re-started because Network Rail has to give the work the all clear.

The delay meant the seven month planning permission given by the county council to Tesco, allowing the company to bring construction materials to the building site via a rail siding, ran out in August.

On Tuesday members of Buckinghamshire County Council's development control committee agreed to give the company another year from the date building work started again. And they said the company had to be off this bit of the line by June 2007.

About 40 villagers and one Tesco representative turned up to hear the debate.

Ros Hurn said the committee had had hundreds of letters, and petitions.

"By approving this you would be flying in the face of your responsibility to local democracy. I urge you to reject this application." she said.

Peter Chapman, chairman of Gerrards Cross Parish Council, said the company should be asked to resubmit the application when it knew work would be starting again.

Local councillor and committee member Peter Hardy proposed that the matter should be deferred.

Councillors were sympathetic. The planning application for the store got through on appeal after South Bucks District Council failed to decide in the time allowed.

But planning officer David Pickard said the current application was nothing to do with whether the store should have been given permission.

And he warned that, if members turned Tesco down, the company could bring in building materials by local roads direct to the construction site instead of by rail. The county council had no control over the construction site.

Tesco's corporate affairs manager, Katherine Edwards, said Tesco wanted to get on with things.

"We are extremely sorry about this and well aware of the inconvenience to local people."

Committee member Richard Pushman said: "We have to face the fact that the Tesco site is not going to go away. They have permission and will go ahead. We have to make the best of a bad job."

A Network Rail spokesman said she had no idea when these solutions would come forward, but Network Rail and the Health and Safety Executive had to be sure they were safe.

Unquote:

The very last sentence implies the tunnel is NOT safe??!!!

TRACKWORKER wrote: ADAMANT that I am the author of the above website,

where have i said that?

TRACKWORKER wrote: Give me a break Rob, I am NOT the author and neither is Mr Drysdale.

but you are mr Alan Drysdale, if you are not, tell me why have you been answering questions directed at Alan Drysdale?

TRACKWORKER wrote: Trackworker not as daft as you thought???!!!

er, no more like the opposite actually.