Extraordinary meeting over supermarket saga in Newport
An extraordinary council meeting – the first of its kind for eight years – has been called to thrash out the saga of new supermarkets in Newport.
The Conservative group on Telford & Wrekin Council has called the meeting for May 8 at 6.30pm at Telford College of Arts and Technology.
The Tories will call for an "immediate end to the Newport hypermarket debacle", which has cost the local authority hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs. They claim Telford & Wrekin Council has spent about £1.5 million in dealing with a string of supermarket applications in Newport.
The Labour-led council argues that much of that has been unavoidable as part of the normal planning process.
It will be the first extraordinary meeting of the council since 2006 when plans to introduce car parking charges in parts of the borough were mooted.
Councillor Andrew Eade, leader of the opposition Conservative group, said: "The small cost of this meeting is far outweighed by the large savings to be made persuading the Labour administration to call an immediate end to further legal action in the courts.
"At a time when the Labour administration has decided to cut £10.5m from social care budgets continuing this futile fight will only waste even more public funds.
"They should ask themselves that if it was their own money, would they spend it in such a reckless way."
In 2012 the council gave to go-ahead to plans for a Sainsbury's in Station Road, which would net the local authority about £21million in land sales.
But the proposal was called in by the planning inspectorate. It went before a public inquiry but the inspector died before he could announce his decision.
Another planning inquiry must now take place, on a date yet to be arranged.
But in the meantime the council has on three occasions appealed against a rival Morrisons supermarket in Audley Avenue – once at a planning inquiry, once in the High Court and most recently in the Court of Appeal.
The council has lost on all three occasions, and is now considering appealing again in the Supreme Court.
The Audley Avenue store could have an impact on the Station Road plans as the council's own evidence says only one supermarket is needed in Newport.
