Communities minister Ruth Kelly has raised fresh questions about an urban regeneration company’s plans for a prime site in Tesco’s land bank.
Kelly has gone back to URC Sunderland Arc for more details of its plans for the city’s former Vaux Brewery, six months after an inquiry into the outline application ended.
A decision on the proposal for offices, 1,000 flats and two hotels on the 16-acre Tyne & Wear site has been postponed to 29 March.
In a letter dated 20 December, the department said it could not reach a conclusion on the “components of the proposed scheme and adequacy of the design” and requested more information on the housing mix and the adequacy of the environmental assessment.
It has sparked further concern at Tesco, which bought the land in 2002 and could face a compulsory sale.
“As an objector, you’d want a fresh inquiry to cross-examine new information rather than basing it on written representations,” said David Maddox, planning director at Scott Brownrigg.
The URC opposes using the land to extend the city’s retail but Tesco is pursuing plans for 300,000 sq ft of offices, 350 flats and a 100,000 sq ft store.
Maddox said the request covering “basic issues” was unusual as the secretary of state normally defines matters likely to affect her decision before inquiry.
Max Curtis, Tesco corporate affairs manager, said: “We are surprised at the unprecedented move by the department and are concerned about the legal basis of their response.”
But David Walker, operations director at Sunderland Arc, said: “What we are doing is drawing together lots of different documents and presenting them in a different way.”
The big four supermarkets face a town-by-town inquiry into landbanking and the effect of planning laws on competition.
The details emerged on 23 January, when the Competition Commission unveiled initial findings of its investigation into the £123bn
It rejected claims that Tesco owns so much land that it would soon control nearly half the market, but said that the implications of land banks owned by supermarkets and their use of restrictive covenants on parcels of land they sell needed further investigation.
