Tesco lands a deal

Members of East Sussex County Council's cabinet have, after seven years of negotiation, agreed to sign a contract with the retail giant to clear the way for development at the top of North Street.

As part of the deal, the council will let the existing White House School be demolished to make way for the new store, on condition that Tesco builds a new, state of the art, 3million replacement primary school in Marshfoot Lane.

Tesco will also have to pay for major improvements to Marshlands School, which is not far from where the new White House School will be built, and a large sum of cash will change hands for the benefit of local people.

Headteacher at White House School Ann Gellantly had not heard about the county council's decision until the Sussex Express spoke to her this week. She greeted the news with mixed emotions.

'To have a new building would be very nice,' she said, 'but we're quite happy where we are. The new school would just provide like-for-like we wouldn't have any more classrooms or space for the children.

'We have very good facilities at the school as it is, but they do need updating a bit. In that way, I think the new building's facilities would have to be a good thing for our pupils.'

Most of the supermarket's proposed site is owned by Wealden District Council. Because the county council will benefit most from the Tesco scheme, it has agreed to 'sell' a big area of its own land at Mill Pond Depot in Maresfield to the district council in return.

There are numerous other conditions laid down by the county council, and it is likely that the district council will make many more demands before surrendering its land to the Tesco developers.

An extensive public consultation exercise will be carried out in the New Year to find out what people think of the modern new store, which would be about the same size as the Tesco in Uckfield.

Providing there are no unexpected delays, Tesco's developers hope to have the new White House School under construction in the summer holidays next year. They say the store itself will not be finished until late 2004 at the earliest.