Supermarket fight

By Tania Martin
MT EVELYN residents are being urged to stand up and voice their concerns over a proposed supermarket development.
The plans are now on display and the town’s environmental group is holding a public meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) night.
Representatives from Safeway, the developer and the council have been invited to the meeting to address the residents’ concerned.
Mt Evelyn Environment Protect and Progress Association (MEEPPA) president Clare Worsnop said the meeting is a chance for people to question the developer and to send a clear message – that a Safeway is not wanted.
Ms Worsnop said people only have until Thursday, 5 April to submit an objection to the proposal.
The proposed development is for a supermarket and five speciality stores plus a two-storey car park on the corner of Snowball Avenue and Station Street.
Ms Worsnop said the development is too big for the area and would be a blight on the Mt Evelyn landscape.
“It won’t add anything to the town – we already have a supermarket and they will be just repeating what we have here – there really is no need,” she said.
Mt Evelyn Supermarket manager Gemmel Ignpen said the supermarket is against the development and fears that it may affect many businesses in the town.
“We are against it for many reasons especially as it will mean the destruction of many small businesses in town,” he said.
Mr Ignpen said businesses from the chemist, butcher, and green grocer to the baker will be affected if the development goes ahead.
Fears of a supermarket development have run rife through the town since 2003 when the land on the corner of Snowball Avenue and Station Street was rezoned from residential to business so that a pharmacy, doctor’s surgery and a car park could be developed.
The people of Mt Evelyn originally withdrew their objections to the rezoning of the land to make way for the pharmacy and doctor’s surgery.
But since then they have campaigned to re-establish the land as residential following speculation the land may be used as a Safeway supermarket.
In response to these concerns, the council agreed to develop a design development overlay in September 2005 in an effort to protect the town against inappropriate developments.
In December the council agreed to send the overlay to an independent panel after it received 103 submissions opposing and 183 supporting it.
But townspeople fear work done on the overlay will come too late to protect the people of Mt Evelyn from the development.
Ms Worsnop says the overlay will be too little too late.
She says once the overlay has gone through the panel hearing, which isn’t until the end of April, it will be too late to have any impact on the current supermarket application.
Townspeople are urged to attend the town meeting, which will be held at the Mt Evelyn Town Hall in Wray Crescent at 8pm.