From:
on behalf of DC Secretaries
Subject: FW: Planning application
09/01557/F
I am writing about the above planning application which has now been
closed for comments. I think this is premature as the applicant has appointed an
agent who has just submitted their supporting evidence dated 21st December 2009
with additional information from Mr J Noquet on 23rd December. Being the
Christmas holidays, not many people will have had a chance to review and comment
on their new submissions.
I would also like to point out that their document is totally illegible due
to the poor scanning (or poor originals), so it is not possible to comment on
what can not be read.
I would also like to point out that the planning portal only allows the
last 25 of the 171 submissions to be viewed due to the fact that non of the
navigation buttons on the web page work.
What I wanted to add was the following perspective of the pub market by J D
Wetherspoon's Chairman Tim Martin which it totally the reverse of Mr Noquets
view.
I trust you will be able to take this into consideration.
Statistics damn
statistics.
I strongly object to the planning proposal
from Mr and Mrs Noquet, and
to their misuse of statistics to try to
justify their miserable scheme.
Tim Martin, Chairman of J D Wetherspoon
has just been on the Radio 4
Today program (6am 1st January 2010)
claiming that the pub business
has never been stronger. They are
making record profits on a record
turnover and are looking to
acquire/open 200 new pubs in the next few
years. He goes on to say
that the pub business is a people business.
"you have to provide good
food, good beer and with excellent service
provided by well trained
staff." He went on to say that pubs that are
failing are failing to
deliver on these basics. This is exactly where
the Noquets' failed,
and one reason was that Mrs. Noquet never moved
to the Bishop Blaize
which demonstrated their lack of commitment to
the business.
Mr
Noquet and his agent are using the same arguments that were put
forward in the previous two planning applications for change of use.
The first argument is that it can't be run as a business. This is
totally incorrect and has been proved to be incorrect by previous
landlords of the Bishop Blaize, and the J D Wetherspoon
experience.
Their second argument is that when the Bishop Blaize has been put
up
for sale there are no buyers. Again this is totally incorrect. When
marketed at the current market value, taking into consideration the
state of the building and the total destruction of the business there
are lots of people who want to buy the Bishop Blaize and return it to
its former glory as a village pub. Fisher German in their submission
state that they had a lot of interest and one firm offer prior to the
auction. To support his claim, Mr. Noquet tries to sell it at twice
the market value ( figure plucked out of the air and supported by 4
year old estimates) and gets no interest. Also Mr Noquet seems to have
forgotten that he accepted an offer in writing prior to the last
application for change of use and withdrew his acceptance just days
before the application was thrown out by the planning
committee.
Some numbers.
J D Wetherspoon turnover to 26th July 2008 up
1.2% with pre tax
profits up by 13.6%, and for the year to 26th July
2009; turnover up a
further 5.2% and profit by an additional 7.2%. If
you look at the
"accounts" provided by Mr Noquet the only numbers he
managed to
increase were the costs of running the Bishop Blaize. If he
had kept
the costs down to the level of Sam Merchant then Mr Noquet
would have
made a good profit.
I trust that this planning
application for change of use will be
rejected.
Yours
sincerely
Mr C J Radcliffe.