St Edmund
The Knights of Saint Edmund

The Cattlemarket Development - The Miller Group and the Press (1)

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"But simple as the tale is there is hardly better historic training for a man than to set him frankly in the streets of a quiet little town like Bury St. Edmunds, and bid him work out the history of the men who lived and died there. In the quiet, quaintly-named streets, in the town-mead and the market-place, in the Lord’s mill beside the stream, in the ruffed and future brasses of its burghers in the church, lies the real life of England and Englishmen, this life of their home and their trade, their ceaseless, sober struggle with oppression, their steady, unwearied battle for self-government. It is just in the pettiness of its details, in its common place incidents, in the want of marked features and striking events, that the real lesson of the whole story lies. For two centuries this little town of Bury St. Edmunds was winning Liberty to itself, and yet we hardly note as we pass from one little step to another little step how surely that Liberty was being won."

John Richard Green (1837-1883), grandfather of British social and cultural history.

Green, J. R., (1876), Stray studies from England and Italy, Macmillan & Co., London p.218-9

The Cattlemarket Development

The Miller Group, Johnston Press PLC, Anglia Newspapers Ltd. and the Bury Free Press (Part 1)

Centros Miller is a joint 50:50 partnership between the Miller Group, Britain's largest family building firm, and Delancey, a development finance company.
http://www.developments.miller.co.uk/

Centros Miller is currently undertaking retail developments in conjunction with the Bury St Edmunds and Portsmouth councils. In Bury St Edmunds Centros Miller (Bury St Edmunds) Ltd. is redeveloping the cattle-market as a shopping centre around a Debenhams super store.

townplan
Townplan Bury St Edmunds; map from St Edmundsbury Borough Council
Click to enlarge


In Portsmouth this is the demolition of the Tricorn and the construction of a shopping centre a move opposed by the Portsmouth Society.
PDF at www.portsmouthsociety.org.uk/

Amongst the non-executive directors of the Miller Group is a gentleman called Tim Bowdler. Mr Bowdler has an additional full time job as the Chief Executive of a Scottish based media group called Johnston Press PLC that owns newspaper companies across the UK.
www.johnstonpress.co.uk/


Tim Bowdler
Tim Bowdler, non executive director of Miller group and chief executive of Johnston Press PLC
(Picture from Newspaper Society Web page)


Amongst the newspaper companies that Mr Bowdler runs are Anglian Newspapers Ltd, which owns the Bury Free Press and the Bury St Edmunds Citizen as well as the Suffolk Free Press and the Haverhill Echo.
www.johnstonpress.co.uk : Anglia Newspapers

In Portsmouth Johnston Press PLC own Portsmouth Publishing and Printing Ltd, which owns; The News and the Hayling Islander.
www.johnstonpress.co.uk : Portsmouth Publishing

As chief executive of Johnston press Mr Tim Bowdler Group is responsible for running the local newspaper companies in both the towns where Centros Miller is currently undertaking the construction of controversial shopping centres. In the case of Bury St Edmunds the area of the development includes the property of Anglia Newspapers Ltd., in the shape of the Kings Road offices of the Bury Free Press and Bury Mercury.
areaplan
Location of Anglia Newspapers Property within development area; map after St Edmundsbury Borough Council
Click to enlarge


This means that Mr Bowdler has a prima facie conflict of interest between managing a local newspaper company with a clear and direct financial interest in the redevelopment of the cattle market, while sitting on the board of the Miller Group that owns half of the development company that will be redeveloping the property of Anglia Newspapers Ltd.

Mr Bowdler would therefore appear to be making money from both ends of the deal. Johnston Press PLC profit by selling the land and Miller Group gets half the profits from Centros Miller's redevelopment. Perhaps Mr Bowdler would welcome some clear guidelines or government legislation to clarify the anomalous position that he finds himself, or may be not.
www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/
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