Telford Shopping Centre bosses lose Asda legal challenge
Wednesday 27th July 2011, 3:31PM BST.
The owners of Telford Shopping Centre today lost their legal challenge to plans for a new ASDA superstore that they claim will take the retailer – and shoppers – out of the centre.
Telford Trustee No. 1 Ltd and Telford Trustee No. 2 Ltd, who own the Shopping Centre with the current ASDA as its foodstore “anchor” had challenged plans to plans to build the new, larger store on the site of Telford & Wrekin Council’s Civic Offices, the other side of a busy main road from the centre.
But today, Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Richards backed the Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the superstore, and ruled that its reasons for its decision had been adequate.
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great news parking fees not for me dont pay to park you wont get my money cause your greedy gits i only shop where parkings free and yes theres loads free parking around so lok for it and use it stop these rediculous parking rip offs
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Good! Private companies “owning” a town centre and dictating what may or may not be developed around it is nonsense.
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Good, its a business decision that should be up to the individual business. If they had not got greedy with car parking charges I am sure things would have ended differently.
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Oh dear – how sad – now you now what it felt like when you killed all the local small towns in Telford, RIP.
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This all dates back to an earlier Labour administration horse trading with the (then) centre owners over planning permission for Beatties (now House of Fraser). The council wanted to introduce parking charges in other Borough areas, but didn’t dare to so long as the town centre mall remained free parking. Consequently, the mall introduced parking charges – bringing them into conflict with ASDA. The council likewise introduced charges – which lost Labour their majority at the Borough Council elections and were then abolished by the new administration. The mall charges remained however, and were the first things to be raised to realize a quick profit for the new owners when the centre was sold on. Hardly surprising then, that ASDA decided to purchase the Civic Offices site when it became available. Had the mall owners been more flexible, this dispute could have been avoided, in fact, it should have been avoided, but as is now usual in contemporary business, arrogance, greed and idiocy prevailed. I would be curious to know just how much this legal challenge cost them – because indirectly, shoppers to the mall are going to end up paying for it.
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