'Stalling' leads to store war of words
THE borough council's planning department has been accused of delaying an application for a supermarket in Ellesmere Port.
Bosses at Morrisons say they are frustrated by the lack of progress and as a result have taken the step of writing to the council calling on it to stop stalling and move forward.
But the borough council denies the allegations and lays the blame with Morrisons, saying it is they who are guilty of stalling because the information they submitted was inadequate, and that it was the supermarket who requested the information be deferred.
The proposed supermarket would be located on a plot of land at the West Cheshire College campus and is set to create 350 jobs for the area.
Morrisons has since acquired the Safeway store, off Chester Road, Whitby, and if the application is successful, Safeway would close when the new store opens and staff at the existing store would transfer over.
Morrisons development director Chris Evenson said: 'Clearly the situation has changed since we submitted our planning application last July in that we have now acquired Safeway.
'This change led to us having to undertake new studies to provide the council with relevant information regarding the overall retail impact of the scheme. This information was provided to the council in May.
'We understand that having received the information from us, the council sent it on to their own consultants to assess and that they reported back in late June, early July.
'However, the council has now told us that in the month since then the case officer has apparently been too busy to read the report.'
He added: 'We are surprised at and disappointed by this response, particularly as it has now come to light that an application to extend the Sainsburys store at Cheshire Oaks was registered with the council about three weeks ago and it now seems to be intimating that we must wait for that application to catch up with our own.
'Quite why this should be necessary we do not know. We thought that the application dealing with the Asda extension should be considered with our own, yet it was dealt with very speedily while we were kept waiting. Now it seems we are having to wait again.'
The council's head of planning services Tom Miller said: 'I'm surprised at the tone of Morrisons' complaint. Much of the delay has been caused by themselves. The information submitted with the application was inadequate but Morrisons themselves asked for the application to be deferred rather than refused on inadequate information.'
He added: 'The case officer has read the report and we are keen to give the matter careful consideration.