Over a decade ago, KPI/St Modwen, a Kuwaiti-funded front company, bought Farnborough town centre lock, stock and barrel. They then, with the connivance of the local council, laid waste to the town centre. Retailers, many of them small family businesses who had been there for thirty years or more, were driven out of town or out of business. For several years the town centre was left semi-derelict, with nothing but boarded-up shop units. What remained was demolished, asbestos dust everywhere, two people almost lost their lives. An unsecured demolition site was left for a year or more. Building work then commenced. What has been built is an eyesore, even worse than the 1960s shopping precinct it has replaced.

Developments of this type, retail cum leisure cum yuppie flats, are failing across the country, and that was before the current recession hit.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/403650.html?c=on
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/404070.html

St Modwen has a track record across the country of trashing town centres. At Upton Park they wished to destroy the century old Queens Market, same again at Walthamstow, same again at Hatfield. At Hatfield, having driven out the retailers and leaving a semi-derelict town centre of boarded-up shops, they told the council they were leaving it like it was as they had no money.

 http://www.friendsofqueensmarket.org.uk/
 http://fighttheheight.blogspot.com/
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/400039.html
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/292860.html
 http://fighttheheight.blogspot.com/2008/07/st-modwen-delays-elsewhere-demands.html
 http://www.whtimes.co.uk/content/whtimes/news/story.aspx?brand=WHTOnline&category=News&tBrand=HertsCambsOnline&tCategory=newslatestWHT&itemid=WEED11%20Jul%202008%2012%3A33%3A07%3A933

Last summer, hoardings went up in Farnborough showing a thriving retail centre in Farnborough. The shops shown, on closer inspection, all proved to be fake shops, Starlarks instead of Starbucks, but using the same corporate colours and logos, a clear case of 'passing off', using a well known brand name to enhance your own sordid reputation by association. The High Street names were not amused.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/397548.html

What then do we have?

The promised cinema never was. The planning consent expired years ago.

One large Sainsbury's superstore within less than 50 metres of an existing Asda superstore and within a local area saturated with superstores. A small estate of social housing, 28 maisonettes, has been demolished to provide a car park for the superstore. The superstore will face out of the town centre, leaving what little is left of the town centre around the back of the superstore to whither and die. Its car park will be free.

Scraping the bottle of the barrel, KPI/St Modwen managed to find a bingo operator for its leisure element. The bingo operator has announced they are pulling out.

The flats above the superstore and leisure element are to be left as empty shells as KPI/St Modwen has no money for completion. Put on sale a year ago, of the 115 flats, KPI/St Modwen has been able to sell four! Flats that will sit atop a superstore with 24-hour opening, 24-hour lorry deliveries. The mugs who were conned into buying the four flats should be demanding their money back and compensation.

Of the other retail units KPI/St Modwen promised to build, they have managed to let a grand total of zero! These are therefore unlikely to be built.

Alongside the superstore with back bedrooms looking straight into the back wall of the superstore and overlooking the superstore delivery yard is a Travel Lodge. The lodge has no car park.

The cinema that never was, the carrot KPI/St Modwen dangled before the council, will not be built. Apart from the fact that St Modwen has no money and is in danger of going under (and good riddance if they do), KPI/St Modwen has said the cinema will cost more to build than its value, thus it will not go ahead.

The true cost of this development has been a town centre trashed, local retail businesses destroyed, tenants who lived in the flats above the shops driven out of their homes, social tenants who lived at Firgrove Court driven out of their homes.

Were it not for a binding legal agreement, KPI/St Modwen would already have pulled out of Farnborough.

Bullshit award of the year must go to St Modwen regional director Tim Seddon for his statement that St Modwen was 'absolutely committed to Farnborough's regeneration.'

The solution put forward by Rushmoor Chief Executive Andrew Lloyd who has been in bed with KPI/St Modwen since they arrived in town and acts as their cheer leader is that the Council coughs up local taxpayers money and bails out the KPI/St Modwen development!

It is not only Farnborough where Lloyd acts for developers. In Aldershot he has been pushing for years for a retail cum leisure cum yuppie flats development alongside an out-of-town Tesco superstore. It will destroy what little is left of Aldershot town centre, and if it were not for the ethnic food shops there would be nothing left. Lloyd with no sense of irony and what has to be seen as a sick joke calls it 'Aldershot regeneration'! Anyone bar a local councillor and with half a brain can see that if this ever goes ahead it will destroy what little is left of Aldershot town centre.

The only part of the borough that has so far survived, and that is because there has been no meddling by the council, is North Camp, the original Farnborough town centre. But even here, bully-boys from the council, worthless jobsworth who have to do something to justify their worthless existence, seem determined to shut shops down, shops that bring people in from miles around, shops that bring money into the area. But then these shops are not High Street names.

It did not have to be like this. Contrast Aldershot and Farnborough with Brighton. Brighton has two areas, North Laine and The Lanes, narrow streets, quirky little shops, shop vacancy level at 5% compared with 30% in another part of Brighton dominated by High Street names. It is the small quirky shops, shops with character, that pull people in. Money spent in these shops is recycled within the local economy.

 http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/why-visit-brighton/

Farnborough does not even have a farmers market, whereas neighbouring Guildford has a thriving farmers market on the first Tuesday of the month. There are plans afoot to establish a monthly farmers market in North Camp, but so far these have foundered through lack of support from the council. Road closures are required which means council involvement. There is a cost, the cost of one council department charging another.

No money in the kitty for a farmers market, but in these hard pressed financial times the council can find money to bail out a Kuwaiti-financed property company, for a scheme that even the developer says is no longer viable.

The situation in Farnborough is so dire that many of the charity shops have pulled out. But hey, what the hell, the shop unit left vacant by the bankrupt Woollies is to be occupied by Poundland!

Also see

Pete Castle, £53m town plan faces hard times, Farnborough News and Mail, 13 November 2009

David Clifford, Farnborough Town Centre, blogspot, 28 October 2009
 http://cllrclifford.blogspot.com/2009/10/farnborough-town-centre.html

Keith Parkins, Why visit Brighton?, WordPress, 5 November 2009
 http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/why-visit-brighton/