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The Sainsbury Complication |
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Shortly after the decision of the Development Control Committee at the end of January 2007 it was announced that Sainsbury's had acquired the superior lease, effectively making them Waitrose's landlord. Waitrose's own lease expires in December 2009 at which point the site would become available to Sainsbury whose own lease would have something like 26 years still to run.
Some in the town have said in the local press that this shows that the decision to refuse the Waitrose application was wrong.
We don't agree for the following reasons:
- It’s a dog-eat-dog world in retail - none of the major supermarket chains is a charitable institution – that applies to Waitrose just as much as Sainsbury.
- Sainsbury’s acquisition of a superior lease has little to do with the planning applications. They stole a commercial march on Waitrose. Perhaps they made the owners an offer that was impossible to refuse; perhaps Waitrose took their eyes off the ball trying to force their plans through; it’s probably a bit of both.
- Some of the correspondents mentioned the beneficial or neutral effect of Waitrose stores in other towns. With respect those towns aren’t Marlow; they should look instead at Wallingford where a store similar in size and design was erected in a prominent position. We have heard the centre described as 'like downtown Dallas' and that many of Wallingford's smaller local shops have now closed.
- Sainsbury are just as likely to try a plan as unacceptable as the Waitrose ones, but they might (just might) learn in a way that Waitrose, who really changed nothing significant while purporting to consult, didn’t. It was only the Councillors who, unlike their planning officers, listened and recognised that the scale and slab-sided glass design was out of keeping with Marlow and so prevented the acceptance which had been recommended to them.
We await further developments! |
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