A property developer behind plans to develop Peterborough’s North Westgate area has failed in a High Court bid to stop a rival firm from developing a different part of the city.
At a hearing last month Hawksworth Securities, the developer behind the £100m North Westgate scheme, which has already secured planning permission, asked Lang J to quash an outline permission granted to IREEF Queensgate for a rival £30m development at the Queensgate Shopping Centre.
Both developments plan to included cinemas. As a result, lawyers for Hawksworth say that if this second project goes ahead, its own scheme would no longer be viable and would not be implemented because there isn’t enough demand for more than one cinema in the city centre.
But in her ruling today, Lang J disagreed. She said that the Queensgate scheme’s potential to threaten the Westgate plans “could not be properly characterised as ‘planning harm’ of the type which the court in Trusthouse Forte and Mount Cook envisaged would trigger a requirement to consider and alternative site”.
“The Queensgate scheme was, of itself, in accordance with planning policy, and had no planning disadvantages; and the North Westgate Opportunity Area hand not been prioritised in the development plan,” she said.