I oppose the opening of another takeaway/delivery style shop at 4 Station Parade, Letchworth Garden City, Herts, SG6 3AW for the following reasons.
1. Health and safety of the public
2. The amount of the shops already in the town in the same trade
3. The practicality of the shop being in the proposed location

1. The health and safety issue stems from the chaos already at the train station, since the installation of the traffic lights at the exit, where there was formally a roundabout.
Since then, there have been road traffic collisions outside the parade of shops where buses and coaches stop, taxis and vehicles try to leave the station and customers try to park for the shops. It is a hazard to have so many OAP's waiting for buses during the day and crossing there with all the traffic squeezing by. There are many frequent buses which operate from outside of the premises and the bus stop already blocks the vehicle lane which is meant for turning left.
Furthermore, the situation worsens in the evening with more trains arriving so the taxis, buses, and relatives of those collecting passengers scuffle to leave the station. Each day when the traffic lights turn red whilst a train arrives the traffic backs up in the area where the shop is located, this happens four times an hour, during peak times the traffic is so bad that cars struggle to turn into the station itself.
2. The amount of shops already in the same trade.
For over 10 year's I have run Oh My Cod with my wife and have seen nothing but food shop's arrive in the town where other types of retails units have closed down. We never used to mind as it was always exciting for us to also try other shops' food too which we still enjoy. But sadly it has come to a point where myself and my wife would not like to see other businesses of the same type come to the town as it has become too difficult to compete with each other and still pay ever rising costs of rent, stock and utilities. We feel that it would be like having too much of something. I'm sure the other shops would agree 100% and you would know its not to keep competition out but to survive.
If the roundabout, was still outside of our shop, rather than the traffic lights and the parking was still available we would most likely welcome a similar food type as in that instance we feel it would attract more business and have a food court type of feel. But the way things are, we have seen that it can be dangerous outside of our shop with the poor lighting and the traffic situation.
3. It is not feasible to run a takeaway store from this location given the traffic jams and parking situation. When the station is at a peak time so will be the proposed shop. How will the pizza shop attract more people to the area to collect food safely when the traffic is already bad? Furthermore, if they were to run a delivery operation they would struggle to do it safely as their peak times would match those of the train station and the station.