Today is (officially) the last day for us to have our say on Tesco’s proposals for the Ashton Gate site.

You can post your comments online at this address: http://e2eweb.bristol.gov.uk/PublicAccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?caseno=KODA82DN08900

Or you can email the Council at development.management@bristol.gov.uk , quoting reference  09/03208/P.

You may already have signed a petition in local shops about the development, but names on a list do not carry as much weight with planning committees as individual comments, apparently.

I think that having a giant superstore at Ashton Gate will have a negative impact on the North Street shops. If you don’t want to see Tesco at Ashton Gate and would like to comment on the application, here are some of the points that could be made:

• Already enough supermarket provision locally.

• Negative impact on smaller local shops and damage to regeneration that has already occurred.

• If ‘key’ shops (butchers, greengrocers, bakers) disappear from the high street the viability of the whole high street will be in danger.

• Significant increase in traffic and congestion in the surrounding communities. Air quality and road safety will get worse.

• Noise and light pollution from a 24-hour, 7-day store.

• Local high street is the centre of our community.

• The site is too far from local shops to bring any benefit to the area.

• Our local shops employ many people and reinvest profits locally.

• Wider environmental impact of superstore (encouraging car use, transporting goods, poor use of land)

• Better uses for the site e.g. Affordable housing, community facilities, sports facilities…

• You live close to the site but were not properly consulted (if appropriate)

• The planning decision should not be biased by the push for new stadium