Nicholas Dobson reports on the pitch battle between Sainsbury’s & Tesco
With austerity as the new public sector watchword, every little helps. Except, of course, when it doesn’t. This unfortunately became clear to Wolverhampton Council on 12 May 2010 when its decision to make a compulsory purchase order (CPO) of a site substantially owned or controlled by Sainsbury’s in favour of a scheme proposed by Tesco was ruled unlawful by a majority of the Supreme Court. The case in question was R (Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd) v Wolverhampton City Council and another [2010] UKSC 20, [2010] All ER (D) 98 (May).
Background
Both Tesco and Sainsbury’s applied for outline planning consent to develop the semi-derelict Raglan Street site (RSS) in Wolverhampton City Centre. Sainsbury’s owns or controls some 86% of that site and Tesco controls most of the remainder. Tesco also controls another large site in Wolverhampton City Centre some 850m away from RSS and known as the Royal Hospital Site (RHS). This site has a number of listed buildings in poor condition and Tesco’s position was that it would not be financially viable
