The owner of a Lancashire shopping centre asked London’s Court of Appeal to block a rival’s planning permission.
Skelmersdale Limited Partnership (SLP), the owner of the Concourse Centre in Skelmersdale, near Wigan, is fearful that a new shopping centre planned for the town centre will cause it to lose some of its major tenants. At a hearing today its barrister said that this would be in violation of the local development plan.
Developers St Mowden wants to build a 100,000 sq ft mixed-use scheme in the town centre, including shops, restaurants and a cinema. The council gave the project planning consent early last year.
However, the council imposed one important condition: major stores should not be allowed to move to the new development within 12 months, unless they agree to operate in both centres.
SLP believes this to be unenforceable and is challenging it in court.
“When deciding on projects, a local authority has to consider whether they conform to the development plan,” SLP’s barrister said today. “Sometimes that is difficult, but here there was a very clear test”.
“That test is that any scheme must not harm the vitality of the Concourse Centre”, she said.
The likely result of the St Mowden scheme is that stores will move from the old centre to the new one, she said.
“The whole point was to get more trade back into Skelmersdale”, she said. “If all you are doing is moving the chess pieces around, you aren’t doing this”.
The case was rejected in the High Court. Earlier this year Mr Justice Jay ruled that it was “crystal clear” that the council’s intention was to safeguard the Concourse by placing formal constraints on the ability of larger retailers to relocate.
He found that the condition intended to meet this aim requires 18 named retailers to give a “legally binding commitment”, and rejected a claim that this could be challenged as discriminatory against those retailers because it plainly amounted to a legitimate planning purpose.
R (on the application of Skelmersdale Limited Partnership) v West Lancashire Borough Council. Court of Appeal (Sales LJ, Briggs LJ) 30 November 2016
