Bid To Halt Portadown Food Store Fails

A food retailer has lost an appeal against planning permission being granted for an unnamed rival food store in Co Armagh.

Local builders are now due for a much needed boost after the court's refusal to judicially review the Department of the Environment over its decision on land at Edenderry, Portadown.

Developer Vico Kent Ltd has received outline planning approval for a food premises, a service area and car parking on the site of an old gas works.

Lawyers for Tesco challenged the move by claiming a Planning Appeals Commission report which recommended excluding the site from Portadown's designated town centre was not properly considered or understood.

They also contended that the decision in December 2008 failed to take into account planning approval given to Tesco a month earlier for a proposed superstore at Marlborough Retail Park, Craigavon.

The Court of Appeal heard claims that the Department's approach to the PAC report was unlawful, and that insufficient consideration was given to the effect on town centre vitality and viability if the development was permitted.

Concluding that a new and modern food store could enhance the adjoining centre as a shopping venue showed a failure to grapple with criticisms about the potential impact of retailing at the site, it was submitted.

But Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, sitting with Lord Justice Higgins and Lord Justice Coghlin, held that there was no evidence to suggest a flaw in the Department's conclusions on the likely consequences on other centres.

"We see no basis for characterising the judgements made as irrational or even unreasonable and, in agreement with the learned trial judge, we reject these grounds of appeal," he said.

(BMcC)