Sunday, February 14, 2016

STRAW POLL ON POSSIBLE NEW ALDI STORE IN BRIGG AREA


Heading out of Brigg early one morning one day last week, we pulled up at the Fountain Corner mini-roundabout on the A18 in Scawby Brook to give right of way to two lorries approaching from Castlethorpe Corner.
They were both piled high with straw bales and that set us wondering whether they were heading for the new Brigg biomass power station. 
Which farm these lorries had left we can't say, but they didn't come through Brigg. 
This sighting set us thinking about the days of bouncing beet. You recall, perhaps, when sugar beets used to escape from passing trailers, in Brigg streets in/near the town centre, while en route to the sugar factory. Pedestrians had to keep their wits about them!
Today's biomass plant is built on part of the old factory site.
Sadly, no-one has yet made use of the former sugar factory club and sportsground site (pictured above), next to Ancholme Leisure Centre.
If Aldi bosses are looking for a site to set up a store in Brigg, as it's believed they are, how about the sugar factory ground, on Scawby Road?
It would have to be an "on stits" construction, given the low-lying status of the old ground where we enjoyed so many happy games of cricket. 
But before anyone pipes up about access from the factory club site onto the A18 near Cake Mills Bridge, we will point out that this was clearly not an issue for the former highway authority and former borough council when the leisure centre was built in the 1970s. Precedent set?
So let's have a straw poll on sites Aldi might consider, if they haven't already done so.
We think there's room on Bridge Street - a suitable distance from competitors Tesco and Lidl. How about the former Corah's stocking factory, which has been untouched for decades. Or part of the extensive Falcon Cycles site, perhaps.
Even the scrub land near Brigg railway station might fit the bill.
Let's have YOUR thoughts. Please post a comment.
1) Sugar factory sportsground
2) Corah's
3) Falcon
4) Near the railway station
5) Any other alternative(s). Please state.


1 comment:

Ken Harrison said...

Vacant plots are at a premium within the town boundary.
But Aldi don't necessarily choose a Central Business District (CBD) site..cf Scunthorpe, where Aldi is on Ferry Rd....buried in various industrial units...
Apart from site already mentioned...there's Atherton Way...and on the proposed Atherton Way/Grammar Sch Rd extension.
Indeed, the latter will promote a surge of proposed development in the area....and if the extension is further extended towards Wrawby,it will see the biggest growth of Brigg for over a generation....