All welcome at Public Meeting 26/03/09

Broxbourne MP Charles Walker has agreed to chair a public meeting at Hoddesdon Parish Church at 7.45pm on Thurs 26/03/09 after approaches from local residents and traders who are very concerned about the decline of Hoddesdon Town Centre and Broxbourne Council’s refusal last month to allow the topic to be discussed at the Borough’s Consultative Panel.

The meeting, open to everyone who lives or works in Hoddesdon, has two main aims:

• to agree a slate of immediate priorities based on those published in 2007 by the Town Centre Partnership
• 
  to start debate on a future “vision” for Hoddesdon over the next 20 years to be included in Broxbourne Council’s Core Strategy Document for the Borough.

Charles Walker agreed to participate on the basis that “as Broxbourne Member of Parliament, I recognise that there is a need for all interested parties to come together to find a workable solution that will reinvigorate Hoddesdon Town Centre. Emotions are running high on all sides and we must calmly sit down on the 26th to constructively talk things through. I remain convinced that we can achieve a win-win situation that meets the local concerns of traders and reflects the Council’s understandable desire to improve the retail experience across the Borough, both in our town centres and at Brookfield Farm.”

Local vicar Jeremy Brooks has offered the use of St Catherine’s & St Paul’s Church for the meeting because: “We have the opportunity here to make a difference to our town. It is easy to think that nothing we can do can make a difference, and this meeting will give us all the chance to express our views. Our concern in the church is to ensure that our community in Hoddesdon can flourish: we need the town centre shops and we need to ensure that the best possible future for us is safeguarded.”

Stephen Poulter, owner of Hoddesdon’s bookshop and former Town Centre Manager, also appealed for local people to come along: “This is the best possible way to bring public pressure to bear on Broxbourne Council so that they can’t continue to ignore their responsibilities under Government legislation to assist the town centre. We must stop any further deterioration and start a process of renewal by improving the town’s visibility and accessibility, and providing a focal point for participation by the whole community.”

At the meeting residents will be invited to discuss a CHARTER FOR HODDESDON which calls on Broxbourne District Council to implement the following:

a) Create a Parking Strategy for Hoddesdon Town Centre - the first priority being to open up the northern end of the High Street to create as many free short term parking spaces within the existing parking bays as possible. Long-term parking facilities must be introduced for town centre workers in an existing Council Car Park.

b) Initiate an urgent meeting with the owners of The Tower Centre and Fawkon Walk plus other major landlords with property holdings in the town to discuss tactics which can be adopted to attract new chain and independent retailers to move into the large number of empty retail units.

c) To fund the immediate launch of a Shop Local Campaign.

d) Provide proper funding for an annual programme of four Town Centre events each year which includes an money to help expand the Christmas Carnival of Light.

e) Install new signage at all main approaches to the town which welcomes people to Hoddesdon and directs them into the High Street.

f) Provide grant funding for the maintenance and expansion of the existing Hoddesdononline website to promote the town to visitors and businesses, and provide a resource for the local community.

g) To adopt a policy to actively encourage leisure facilities back into the Town Centre and specifically to provide financial support to fund the expansion of leisure activity programmes run by Mayhem Theatre Arts and other youth organisations aimed at children and young adults.

h) Introduce free parking in all the Borough’s car parks on each Saturday in December to counteract the same policies which have being adopted by both Epping Forest and East Herts Councils in the nearby towns of Waltham Abbey, Hertford and Ware.

i) To produce a Master Plan for Hoddesdon’s long term development in close consultation with local residents and businesses which includes a strategy to replace the Tower Centre.

Open Letter to Broxbourne Council

SAVE HODDESDON – SCRAP GREATER BROOKFIELD

An Open Letter To Broxbourne Council 02/02/09 - no reply has yet been received

At a time when Hoddesdon is experiencing further shop closures and stands at risk of sliding into terminal decline in the worst recession since the Second World War, we have been appalled to read in recent press adverts that Broxbourne Council is completely ignoring the issue at its forthcoming Borough Consultative Panel on 9th February.

Instead of addressing this crisis, the Council are instead using this exercise to discuss the expansion of Brookfield Farm which is guaranteed to further damage the trading prospects of the Borough’s towns. We, as both owners of a local business in Hoddesdon and residents of this Borough, are therefore calling on Broxbourne Council to abandon the presentation for Brookfield as item 2 of the Borough Consultative Panel on 9th February and replace it with a debate on the current problems and future strategies to help re-vitalise Hoddesdon as the principal town in the Borough.

We need to emphasise that if nothing is done as a matter of urgency then we, along with the dwindling number of independent retailers in Hoddesdon, clearly have no long term prospects of continuing to trade in the town and within the next 12 months of extremely difficult economic conditions face a very real danger of being forced to close.

We are therefore calling on our local customers, concerned town residents and local organisations to attend the Borough Consultative Panel on 9th Feb at 7pm at the Borough Offices, Churchfields, Cheshunt to make their views on this present crisis clear to the Council.

Here are the facts about what has happened to Hoddesdon Town Centre in the last two years:

A Report produced for Broxbourne Council in 2005 noted there were 30 empty units in the Town Centre representing a vacancy rate of 19% “well above the national average of 10.13% …the high vacancy rate in the Tower Centre is a concern.” There are now 43 unoccupied units in the Tower Centre alone – with only 11 units remaining as retail or food outlets. This means that less than 20% of the precinct is now occupied, and the vacancy rate for the whole town has increased by more than 50%.

Seven retailers in the High Street have ceased trading. Most of the retail units they occupied (including the former Woolwich, Pounds Electrical Store and Prestige Wedding Shop) are still empty after 12 months or more.

The sudden closure of Woolworths last month leaves the largest retail unit in the Tower Centre and second largest premises in the town empty.

Westgate, the town’s largest retail unit, formerly the Co-Op Department Store, closed down in the summer of 2008 after 50 years of trading on the basis that it wasn’t able to make a profit.

Ladies’ clothing boutique, Chardonnay, was re-possessed by Bailiffs in Febuary (making it the third shop to close in such circumstances), and there are strong rumours that at least three other retailers will be closing in the near future.

As traders in the town we believe that these facts demonstrate that Hoddesdon has reached tipping point and without appropriate intervention will rapidly become a semi-derelict place of boarded up shop units, cheap takeaways, cut price outlets (such as the one currently occupying the old Westgate unit) and pawn brokers – the first of which is opening shortly in the High Street.

And what action have Broxbourne Council taken to address this serious deterioration? They have not spent any money on helping Hoddesdon, but instead have commissioned a detailed plan for the expansion of Brookfield Farm which has so far cost around half a million pounds of local ratepayers money. They have signally failed to respond to the fact that all statistics show in cases of similar out-of-town developments that the trading in nearby towns is decimated as a result.

In direct contrast in Hertford, where we have another shop, East Herts Council have been actively engaged in trying to help the town. In the last three months they have carried out a direct consultation with local retailers; provided seed funding to help local businesses work with the Town Council to run a very successful Christmas Gala event; and in the first two weeks of December spent thousands of pounds on a major publicity campaign in the local press to promote Hertford. They have just agreed to provide money to help a number of initiatives in the town, including a “Shop Local” campaign which is to be launched soon.

We are therefore calling upon everyone who cares about the future survival of Hoddesdon to write to you expressing their views and to attend the Borough Consultative Panel on Monday 9th Feb to demand that an action plan is drawn up to save Hoddesdon from terminal decline.

We look forward to Broxbourne Council’s response.

Yours sincerely,
Stephen Poulter and Alan Jeffery
Directors
books @ Hoddesdon