Chase Co-op closure: NHS signs contract with private developer?

I had an interesting conversation today with a manager of the Co-op. In 2010 the Co-op shown great interest in wanting to build a new store on the site of the NHS Wellspring Health Centre located at the front of the Robin Hood Chase shopping precinct. Until recently negotiations were seen to be going well, until the NHS suddenly let it be known that they had signed a contract with a private developer?

As the land is privately owned by the NHS, City Council officers said that they had no control over the situation. However, council officers must have been aware of the NHS being in talks with a private developer earlier this year, and decided to keep quiet about it, because, to use their own words “it was commercially sensitive.”

As a result of this recent NHS announcement, Co-op Managers decided at the end of October to close down their store on the Robin Hood Chase on November 17th giving just 17 days notice. Removing their business from St Ann’s after serving the local community for the past 40 years.

This Comment by Chris Shannon has just been received:

“They [The Co-op] should be bloody well ashamed of themselves.Their roots are as community based self help societies set up with the goal of bypassing the monopolies and enabling working class people access to reasonably priced food. They have made money out of that constituency ever since! Shame on them, they are abandoning the very people they are in existence to serve”!

Have your say, send us your comments about the Chase Co-op Closure, and we will do our best to publish all of them.

By Richard Pearson.