The owner of a Nisa Local convenience store and post office counter in Markygate, Hertfordshire, has won a High Court battle stopping a supermarket from opening up nearby.
Sagar Patel has been challenging Dacorum Borough Council’s decision to allow a developer to turn a disused GP surgery into a Co-Op store.
The proposal caused controversy in the village. It was opposed by the parish council and a petition of opposition attracted 1,000 signatures, with locals objecting to the development’s impact on road safety, parking, local shops, and the village centre, as well as the risk of the closure of the Post Office.
Despite this, the council followed a report written by a planning officer and granted planning permission in December last year.
As a result, Patel challenged the legality of the decision at the High Court. The case heard in July and judgment was given in Patel’s favour yesterday. Patel challenged the decision on “no less than 16 grounds” judge Timothy Mould QC said in his ruling.
Fifteen of the grounds were rejected. However, ground 11 succeeded, in which Patel’s lawyer, Sara Sheikh QC, successfully argued that the council, based on the planning officer’s report, had failed to take into account the potential impact of the proposed development on the Post Office operation in the Nisa store.
“The planning officer [in his report] acknowledged that the proposed convenience store would be in direct competition with the Nisa Local store,” the judge said in his ruling.
“His answer to the concern that, as a result, the existing store risked loss of trade to the proposed convenience store was that it is not the role of planning control to limit competition between individual shops. From the perspective of retail planning policy, that answer is correct.”
However, the judge said this doesn’t address the local planning objective of safeguarding existing local facilitates. In short, if Nisa closed down because of competition from the Co-Op, the village would lose its post office, a community asset.
“Ms Sheikh is correct in her submission that, on a fair reading, the report did not address as a material consideration the risk posed by the proposed development to the Post Office counter within the Nisa Local store,” the judge said.
“It is right to conclude that had the question whether the proposed development risked the loss of the existing Post Office counter at the Nisa Local store been addressed, the Committee at least might have reached the overall conclusion that planning permission should be withheld,” he said.
