Potteries Shopping Centre's expansion plan is blocked to protect rival
STOKE-ON-TRENT City Council is blocking a shopping centre's £14 million expansion – in order to protect a rival city centre development.
The authority is refusing to sell land needed for the extension of the Potteries Shopping Centre, despite granting the scheme planning permission in February.
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The Potteries Shopping Centre
In a leaked letter seen by The Sentinel, council chief executive John van de Laarschot assures Realis – the developer behind the proposed £350 million City Sentral shopping centre – that the current Potteries plans would not go ahead.
City Sentral, which is set to provide 80 shops, restaurants and a cinema on the site of the former East West precinct, is the centrepiece of the city council's ambitious plans for the city centre. But the development could be undermined by the Potteries extension, which will house six restaurants and a 10-screen cinema.
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Capital Shopping Centres, which owns the Potteries, needs to buy council-owned land in Brewery Street and Bryan Street in order to proceed with the scheme.
In his letter to Realis managing director Duncan Mathieson, Mr van de Laarschot says the land will not be sold. He writes: "There is no change in our stance with CSC and their need for the council's land. To reiterate, the city council will not sell the land, to CSC, that is required as part of their proposed extension.
"As land owner, the council's consent is required in order to deliver the CSC scheme as granted.
"The council are not negotiating and will not treat with CSC for the disposal or granting of rights over its land to deliver the Potteries extension, to allow City Sentral to progress in compliance with the development agreement the council has entered into with Realis."
Council leader Mohammed Pervez insisted that the council supported the Potteries expansion 'in principle' but said it should not jeopardise City Sentral.
He said: "We have made no secret of the fact that we are backing the City Sentral development in our city centre."
He added: "We are also supportive of the expansion of the Potteries Centre in principle but the two schemes must be complementary and one scheme should not jeopardise the other.
"This will only be possible if the two schemes are phased appropriately."
Former councillor Mike Barnes published an excerpt from the leaked letter on his Potteries Eye website.
He believes that by blocking the Potteries development, the council is gambling with the regeneration of the city centre.
Mr Barnes said: "The question is, will City Sentral still go ahead? We're in a situation where the council is closing everything else down for City Sentral, and now it's got to the point where they're blocking other investment into Hanley."
Councillor Dave Conway, leader of the City Independents group, said the council should have told CSC it had no intention of selling the land before plans were submitted.
Nobody at CSC was available for comment.
Comments
by johnboy2011
Thursday, October 18 2012, 8:36AM
“I think when Mrs T closed the mental hospitals down in the 80s, she said I know we'll give them top jobs on the council.”
by I_Norris
Wednesday, October 17 2012, 6:39PM
“A CSC spokesman said today: "Our plans will bring new restaurants and entertainment space into Hanley and create almost 100 jobs. They won't make the slightest bit of difference to any longer term plans for the city centre and should not be used as an excuse by others for their failure to deliver proposals that will not be realised for many years, if at all. We're ready to invest as soon as the council gives us the green light."
http://tinyurl.com/d44q63t”
by mole10
Wednesday, October 17 2012, 12:49PM
“You don't have to have any ambition in politics or have any interest in politics at all to absolutely know this is just plain wrong.
favouring one business over another is touching the borderline of pure and total political corruption.
It stinks.
It's Stoke-on-Trent.
The whole Country knows where S-o-T is and who runs it.”
by PaulF430
Wednesday, October 17 2012, 12:45PM
“Once again this council proves their worth. Way to prevent DEVELOPMENT and COMPETITION, you apes. Absolute morons, get this stupid Labour run council out of Stoke-on-trent, they're destroying the place. Happily give land away for a Mosque but not a huge cinema and restaurants, creating numerous jobs and boosting the economy. Heaven forbid they did something for the people who pay their absurd wages! Clowns.”
by deluded366
Wednesday, October 17 2012, 10:35AM
“As already said over and over, I think it's daft that the council would refuse any investment into this city.
I understand why they would back a new centre being built. The more the better in my eyes. But to block futher investment into the city from a developer that has remained in this city for god knows how many years is a joke. The Potteries Centre is the only thing going for this dilapidated wreck of a city and pretty much the only thing that has kept it alive over the years.
Having seen the site they wish to build on, half is already a Potteries car park, the other half is a disused (for many years) council owned car park that has fallen into disrepair. The tarmac is cracked and torn up and will soon become overgrown. The council have no legitimate reason to want to hang onto this land other than to hold back development in the city they supposedly want to invest into and develop... Idiots.”
by newromantic
Tuesday, October 16 2012, 7:14PM
“In Crewe the Council put "the town" on hold for about 8 years while they allowed MODUS to put together a new shopping centre, and as the market dropped off so did MODUS. The council spent hundreds of thousand on CPO costs, and consultants after consultants. Ten years on, no shopping centre and no MODUS, so beware of false promises Stoke !
Realis don't come any where near MODUS in terms of credibility, and that was zero credibility.
A bird in the Hand Stoke council !”
by Juzzah
Tuesday, October 16 2012, 8:23AM
“If I was CSC I would now be appealing to the government, which is an option if they don't think that the councils decision if fair!! Which by the way it isn't as the council is not supposed to favour one developer!!!”
by Justsuppose
Tuesday, October 16 2012, 12:01AM
“I think the council didn't block it - I think John van der Laarschott took an arbitrary decision, way outside his remit, and Pervez is backing him retrospectively because otherwise the brown stuff will really hit the fan. I can't see any other explanation when you consider that planning permission was granted in February. It also looks like Realis can't stand the competition and possibly threatened to pull the plug on Dyslexia Towers; a cute ploy to minimise their losses maybe?
Besides, if "retail is the answer", which is what we're told by the continued "regeneration" of Hanley to the detriment of the other 5 towns, then surely more shops and greater expansion is the answer ... or am I being thick?”
by Pantofola
Monday, October 15 2012, 11:23PM
“SOT council are a laughing stock.
No wonder this city is light years behind most others.”
by PeterPotter
Monday, October 15 2012, 11:08PM
“sounds fishy as all get out to me. Just like the idiotic idea of spending 45 million to move city council HQ to Hanley, develpoers want to spend hundreds of millions on a new shopping centre . Where are the people coming from that will actually have money to spend in this new centre, oops excuse me senter, in such an impoverished region as Stoke on Trent ??”