7
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locals had concerns about a major supermarket chain coming to the town, but there was also an issue that the methods used to deliver the 5,600 sq m (60,000 sq ft) store could cause cata- strophic damage to their seaside town. To win over the locals, ISG – Tesco’s main contractors on the
W
project – had to produce a feat of engineering on a retail scheme that has never been seen before in this country. “People thought we were going to flood Seaton and the
bridges would collapse,” says ISG’s project manager Martyn Fletcher with a grin. Fletcher’s light hearted demeanour is understandable because
he is sitting in a Costa Coffee shop in the newly opened store, which despite being one of ISG’s most difficult retail projects, was completed on time and to budget. Seaton has seen little development in recent years, bar a
couple of retirement schemes from McCarthy & Stone and Churchill. When two adjacent caravan parks on the outskirts of the town centre owned by Bluewater and Warner closed down back in 2006, East Devon District Council envisioned an ambi- tious regeneration plan. As part of the Thriving Economy plan that aims to deliver
economic growth in both Exmouth and Seaton, at the heart of the council’s plan for the latter was a major mixed development featuring a supermarket, hotel and private residential units. In August 2009, Tesco secured planning permission and a
contract was negotiated with ISG but that did not mean work could then start. Instead, ISG spent 18 months working with Tesco and the local population to convince everyone concerned that the innovative construction solution needed to deliver the store would not be as cataclysmic as the naysayers feared.
...continued on page 9
hen Tesco proposed the opening of a new store in the sleepy Devon retirement town of Seaton, there was some predictable opposition to the scheme. Some
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