Is scruffy shop giving Wickford a bad name? (From Echo)

Is scruffy shop giving Wickford a bad name?

8:00am Friday 4th June 2010 in

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AN “eyesore” shop is putting developers off investing in Wickford, a leading local councillor claims Malcolm Buckley, Basildon councillor responsible for the environment, thinks Bargainland, in The Broadway, is such a mess it is scaring off developers and driving customers away from other businesses.

Mr Buckley says he has been inundated with complaints from neighbours, claiming the secondhand store, which regularly piles old furniture outside, is dragging down the town’s image.

He said: “I think this is probably the ugliest shop in Essex. I’ve had more complaints about it than anything else. A couple of developers have said when they came to the town, it was the first thing they saw. It just creates a bad impression.

“I’d like the shop owner to make some effort to tidy it up outside, since it looks like a rubbish tip at times.”

Bargainland and its kebab shop neighbour are the first two town centre businesses visitors see if they arrive by rail. While the Echo was in the area, several delivery vans pulled up outside, ignoring double yellow lines and leaving back doors wide open, so it was it hard for pedestrians to get by. A variety of old furniture, wheelie bins, vacuum cleaners and other goods was stacked all the way around the outside of the shop.

Karen Regan, 39, of Durants Walk, Wickford, who is blind, said she often had trouble getting past.

She added: “I have to walk by when I go to see my parents and I’m always hitting my arms on the doors of the vans pulled up outside.

“They are just flung wide open and no one ever comes out to see if I’m OK. I know there are elderly and other blind people who struggle to get past.”

Mrs Regan’s father, Michael Mowe, Tory councillor for Wickford North, added: “I had a letter from the council’s planning enforcement officer, to say the shop wasn’t breaking any laws.

“But when you look at our regeneration plans for Wickford it does create the wrong image.”

Owner: They're just being spiteful

THE owner of Bargainland dismissed councillors and residents’ complains as “spiteful”.

Michael James said his business provided a vital service for residents who couldn’t afford new furniture.

He added: “I’m the only one around here who has secondhand furniture.

“I’ve got stuff coming in and out all day and this is my private forecourt.

“We get some elderly people having a moan, but that is typical of some of them.

“These councillors are just being spiteful – not everyone can afford new furniture, you know!”

Bargainland has been selling used electrical appliances and furniture in Wickford for 12 years, originally trading from a High Street shop before moving to The Broadway.

The business then moved back nearer to the High Street, occupying the prominent corner plot on The Broadway, opposite the Aldi supermarket, where it trades today.

Although it adjoins the pavement, the shop’s forecourt, where furniture and goods are piled up, is owned by Mr James and has a legal right to display his goods.

Basildon Council says it is powerless to make him tidy up the shop.