Thank you for inviting us to join the Exmouth Online Forum. We have been in touch with the Forum's administrator regarding requests that we become involved but, to avoid duplication, we will continue to take and answer questions via our own dedicated email address. We believe this is an easy way for people to ask questions and get a personalised reply.

We will also shortly be introducing a FAQ section on our website, so others will get a chance to see the range of questions that have been asked,

We understand the importance of the environment surrounding Exmouth's bus depot site. The development's design will be influenced by our aim to keep the store in keeping with its location.

ASM has been selected for its consideration to - and experience in - environmentally sustainable methods of construction and operation. In previous partnerships with ASDA, they worked closely and successfully with the Environment Agency at Andover in Hampshire, for example.

Careful consideration would be given to local wildlife and nearby Nature Reserves in Exmouth, with specialist environmental consultants engaged to advise and monitor any redevelopment works. Any building or redevelopment would be subject to full consultation with the community and the due planning processes.

ASDA is committed to its new stores consuming 30% less energy by 2009, with a target to send zero waste to landfill by 2010 and is also trialling new eco-technologies in two other stores, including a biomass boiler system.

We will keep the website up to date with the latest developments on this scheme, and we will be holding a public exhibition later in the year where you will be able to see more detailed information and discuss the proposals with us in person.

Kind regards,
The ASDA Team.

The above is a email to which my Mum had recieved, a reply was sent asking about the impact on Traffic, plans for bus depo, libary etc and what the impact will be with the vast number of cyclists using the muti million pound Ex Trail. Is the increased traffic going to be a danger to the increase in cyclists?

Well Trigger I guess all your mother's concerns have been adequately addressed !!!!
I think it perfectly illustrates how they duck the questions and don't really give a darn about Exmouth and it's citizens.
I am tempted to suggest that, if they are truly committed to full public consultation, and it is to be meaningful , i.e. they take notice and act on the results, we should ask them whether they will abandon all their plans if the majority of Exmouty say they are not wanted!

@Trigger. Wow. Really, the only sane response to that email you received from Asda, is contemptuous laughter.

It seems like a profanation of genuine debate to dignify it with a response.

However we all seem to have gone, like Alice, down a rabbit hole into some strange parallel universe where nonsense is not only countenanced but actually regarded as argument - so............. what the hell.

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>Thank you for inviting us to join the Exmouth Online Forum. We have been in touch with >the Forum's administrator regarding requests that we become involved but, to avoid >duplication, we will continue to take and answer questions via our own dedicated email >address. We believe this is an easy way for people to ask questions and get a >personalised reply.

to avoid duplication they're going to respond to the identical concerns of 40,000 citizens 40,000 times?

>We will also shortly be introducing a FAQ section on our website, so others will get a >chance to see the range of questions that have been asked,

that'll be hoot. imagine the questions they'll put up there:

'Dear Asda - i am slightly concerned that your store won't be as lovely as all the other lovely Asda stores. yours Worried of Exmouth'

and

'Dear Asda - will you be making sure that the amount of money you raise for rainforest charities remains as high as ever and that you keep on single-handedly saving the poor orphans of the third world?. yours Concerned of Littleham.

and

'Dear Asda - I know your iconic stores are always entirely constructed of biodegradable sustainable ecologically friendly fair trade wickerwork, but will your beloved and well-treated colleagues be dressed from head to toe in locally-sourced proactive cotton? Anxious of Powderham.'



>We understand the importance of the environment surrounding Exmouth's bus depot >site. The development's design will be influenced by our aim to keep the store in keeping >with its location.

Right. They're going to keep a 45,000 foot concrete box in keeping with an estuary.
How are they going to accomplish that then? by making it out of wind and waves and seaweed?

>ASM has been selected for its consideration to - and experience in - environmentally >sustainable methods of construction and operation. In previous partnerships with ASDA, >they worked closely and successfully with the Environment Agency at Andover in >Hampshire, for example.

Environmentally sustainable construction is an oxymoron on a par with 'darkness visible' 'virgin prostitute' and 'veteran kamikaze'.

Construction is routinely so viciously toxic to the environment that if the people building the new Asda power one dumper truck with sunflower oil they can claim to be green.
Of course they're not green, they're just slightly less environmentally destructive than the other environment destroyers.

>Careful consideration would be given to local wildlife and nearby Nature Reserves in >Exmouth, with specialist environmental consultants engaged to advise and monitor any >redevelopment works. Any building or redevelopment would be subject to full >consultation with the community and the due planning processes.

What mechanism, exactly, will be used to consult with the people of Exmouth? we used to have a consultation mechanism once. It was called democracy. But that went in the can a while back now.
How are we supposed to let Asda know how we feel? By going to their little exhibition and telling some suit, who will be under no obligation to act on them and who will probably file them in the bin?

>ASDA is committed to its new stores consuming 30% less energy by 2009, with a target >to send zero waste to landfill by 2010 and is also trialling new eco-technologies in two >other stores, including a biomass boiler system.

it's still 70% more energy than if the places weren't there in the first place. This is just PR greenwashing of the sort we had in the journal a few weeks back. Two stores out of how many others with lights blazing all day and night? Stores so huge they rely on perpetual electric light - giant warehouses without windows. Stores that rely on food from long-distances away, often from other countries, causing massive worldwide and localised pollution in the process of being resupplied.

But they're 'trialling new technologies'. Good god. They can hardly even be bothered to pretend anymore.

>We will keep the website up to date with the latest developments on this scheme, and we >will be holding a public exhibition later in the year where you will be able to see more >detailed information and discuss the proposals with us in person.

They'll send some poor fresh-faced 20-somethings in to run that exhibition - and we'll know they're on about 5 quid an hour and probably need the money and we won't have the heart to be rude to them. it's just a cosmetics exercise anyway - just as everything is with these people. there's no real consultation involved - just the illusion of it. They're not interested in our concerns - they're not interested in the environment and they're not interested in local businesses or regeneration or anything else. they're just interested in making us *think* they are. All of this is just ham-fisted second-rate PR. the only thing this huge American corporation is interested in is making money out of us.

Thanks for posting that Trigger.

In the unlikely case that anyone thought that ASDA might be undertaking environmental studies out of the goodness of their heart as implied, you should know that it is a legal requirement, not just a local one, but in view of the site's European importance, an EU requirement.

As to the comment as to how ASM were selected, the hiding behind Chatham House rules for the secret meeting last December means that there are no minutes to show how they were chosen. Who knows what the criteria were? How can we know it was a fair competition and that the result was not manipulated in any way? We have seen from Unlocking Exmouth that EDDC put a spin on results, there is also strong evidence that the vote was not the unanimous vote as was reported.

One of the few things of which we can be certain is that ASM, ASDA and East Devon will only tell us what they want us to hear - and that we should never take anything any of them say as gospel but should check and check again.

Sorry for the delay, Jon from http://www.benophotographic.com who took the pictures wanted to edit the pics slightly and make them black and white and web ready. To view the non compressed images, right click and click view image. The pictures are as attached and as follows in the following posts. They are of the ASDA protest group.