Plans for a new retail destination off the M40 motorway outside Banbury are in the balance at the High Court, amid claims it will harm the town centre.
Scottish Widows, owners of the town’s Banbury Cross shopping centre, and Aegon UK Property Fund, owners of the Banbury Cross retail park, are seeking to have quashed the planning permission granted by Cherwell District Council to motorsport technology firm Prodrive and prospective retail park operator LxB RP (Banbury).
Burnett J has reserved judgment in the case, in which Scottish Widows and Aegon claim that the planned redevelopment of Prodrive’s HQ as the 200,000 square foot Gateway retail park will have an adverse effect on trade in Banbury town centre.
They say that permission was granted for the retail park, including a 100,000 square foot anchor store, on a site said to be highly visible from the M40, despite the council’s planning officers recommending refusal.
They claim that the council failed to apply the sequential test, failed to incorporate safeguards for the town centre to prevent tenants of the shopping centre from relocating and failed to impose a binding legal agreement to keep Prodrive in the town.
Prodrive had submitted to the council that selling its current HQ site for retail development was necessary to fund plans to redevelop and relocate to the former Hella factory to the north of Banbury, for which it was granted planning permission in February 2012.
Jeremy Cahill QC, representing Scottish Widows, said that, like many other towns, Banbury, had already suffered during the recession, and the town centre would suffer further if the development is allowed to proceed.
He said: “The preponderance of expert evidence is to the effect that it will be strongly adverse to the town centre.”
And he argued that the council’s reasons were inadequate in a case where millions of pounds of trade and investment were in issue.
Paul Tucker QC, representing Aegon, argued that the council was manifestly incorrect when, in its stated reasons for granting permissiom, it said that the development will have a beneficial effect on the vitality and viability of Banbury town centre, arguing that this was contrary to the retail evidence which concluded that the out-of-town retail park would lead to significant trade diversion.
However, James Findlay QC argued on behalf of the council that the claimants were commercial competitors with an interest in oreventing rival developments, and that their grounds of challenge constituted impermissible attacks on its planning judgment on matters of retail planning policy.
Scottish Widows plc and anr v Cherwell District Council Administrative (Burnett J) 8 November 2013
Jeremy Cahill QC and James Baucher for the first and second claimants
Paul Tucker QC and Anthony Gill for the third claimant
James Findlay QC and Hugh Flanagan for the defendant
Christopher Katkowski QC and Graeme Keen for the first interested party
