A long-running battle to build a supermarket in the centre of Wolverhampton took another turn today – and again delayed any prospect of work starting.
Store giant Sainsbury’s announced it had won permission to take its battle with Tesco over land off the city’s Ring Road to the highest court in the country.
The stores have been battling for more than a decade over the right to build a multi-million pound retail and homes development in Raglan Street, Graiseley.
Sainsbury’s has already lost two High Court showdowns in its bid to overturn Wolverhampton City Council’s ruling that it should hand over its 86 per cent share of the site to its main competitor.
Now, it has been granted permission to take its fight to the Supreme Court.
Sue Bailey, spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s, said: “I can confirm that we have been granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.”
Lawyers for Sainsbury’s have said Wolverhampton Council had acted “unlawfully” when it backed Tesco’s bid.
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23 Comments
As a chapel ash resident, unless I want yet another kebab for my tea I have to walk in all conditions to asda for my local supermarket when I want to treat Mrs Hoopdini for tea, im not ruddy happy about this
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Another nail in the Wolvo coffin. The city centre crumbles away, big business fight each other, a fountain that cant cope with the cold.
Goodnight Wolves and god bless
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Just proves how much of a farce this city is. Sooner I leave the better!
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This is a prime example of how the local authority planning department are bringing this city to it’s knees. Another empty site is left to rot away, when the development could be finished, bringing much needed jobs and housing to the area. Instead of actively encouraging development and helping developers to deliver good buildings and facilities they are hindering and actively preventing investment in the city.
This truly is an absolute disgrace.
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Whether it be shopping or a night out on the town, never seen a place go down hill so much, it needs a revamp and quickly, having had many good nights out there and shops to go to, it is slowly going down hill. If it wasn’t for being a Wolves fan, I would not be back anywhere near Wolverhampton which is a sad fact, this battle with the supermarkets just makes it worse
Get a grip Wolves Council and stop turning the city into a Farce
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Good luck to Sainsbury, what the Council are trying to do to them is against natural justice. They own 86% of the site why should they hand it to a competitor. Can someone tell the Council to stop wasting our money fighting this
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Down with Tesco.. booooo
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Number 6 – This land has been in the hands of Sainsbury’s for many many years and they have done diddly squat with it ~ that’s why it should be taken off them and given to Tesco who will actively develop it!
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I moved from Wolvo to shropshire three years ago and have never looked back. There is a lot of development in telford town centre at the moment and some projects passed by the council to happen over the next year or two, if big companies dont get planning passed to build or expand in wolvo its places like telford, walsall etc who are likely to benefit. Its sad because there has been so many chances over the last 5 or 10 years for some exciting projects put forward for planning by big name companies that for one reason or another have been brushed under the carpet, maybe the Mander centre holds to much power over the town centre or is it the inept local council who just have,nt got a clue..
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Will the last person to leave wolverhampton please turn out the lights
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Harry Hoopdini- i suggest you stop eating so many kebabs then you wouldnt complain as much! Try taking Mrs Hoopdini out for dinner instead of complaining about Graisley!
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Gary EDolini, how are you fella, hope little leroy is doing well,he’s coming on a bit now I bet.
The Hoopdini’s are not much culture vultures mar mate but I may give that a try and tek the old lady out.
Back to point, council sort this out, and next time give me bin a better clean
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alright then Harry Hoopdini, why dont yo clean yower bin yo self. Sum of uz dow have the privelidge of livin in the posh streetz of chapel ash. stop yower blartin
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Since this site is outside the ring road and Wton decided many years ago that City Centre development was to be confined to the area within the ring road…. why not say a “plague on both your houses”?
Let the site be developed for residential use and allow the most enterprising bidder to have the site of the market for their supermarket…. since the market appears to be on the move…. Rebuild the multi-storey car park to serve the supermarket…but not a collapsing one please… and instead of a cheap and nasty single storey development how about using the space above the supermarket for offices and apartments?
This might breathe some life back into the City. The proposed out of centre develpment should never have been permitted in any event.
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please boycot Sainsbury’s if they build they will move out of the church and leave that empty if you want to shop at sainsburys you can go to wednesfield
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This is a joke. Fortunately for me I can read it from 3000 miles away but my heart grieves for my home. Let the politicians run things on their own, without their mom’s to look after them, and this is what happens. If these incompetant fools weren’t killing Wolverhampton it would be funny but it’s not, it’s tragic, in the true sense of the word.
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Why are Sainsburys so desperate to build a second supermarket on the other side of the ring road anyway. They wont keep 2 open that are a mile apart they’ll just close the other one and leave that to rot instead. I think there are enough supermarkets around already. The land should be used for something completely different. Perhaps Wolverhampton Uni should buy it to consolidate campus’s and make Wolverhampton Uni a uni in Wolverhampton and not one 3rd in Walsall one 3rd in Telford.
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You won’t beat Tesco’s so give it up as a bad lot. Tesco’s is far better for the people of deprived Wolverhampton.
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RE; A previous comment:Well done E+S, your selective censorship to protect your friends at the council is a disgrace, if you acted as you should and investigated the councils actions, serving the people that buy your papers, people like me would not have to resort to putting the information in the public domain; shame on you, sites like the sainsbury/tesco ( who it seems are both as bad as each other and have no intention of developing the site ), the abandoned petrol station at Newbridge and the alledged drug dealing next door , the springfield site, the railway station ( that will never be developed ) and a dozen other sites on gateway accesses to the city, make the place unatractive to visitors and potential investors, like myself, but the chumps at the council, having no entreprenurial or business skills would not understand that. as a previous commentator said RIP WOLVERHAMPTON and it,s existing businesses
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This town…. is becoming like a ghost town..
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Ditto more council fantasy; When an exhibition in Wulfrun centre,re. development of the railway station,I had a 100 pound wager with the geezzer/gal presenting it, that nothing would happen in 10 years, never mind the 12 months they were claiming, that and the Temple St/Cleveland Rd shopping centre fiasco,( as if the owners of the other shoddy shopping centres in the town were ever going to let that happen!): No surprise they have renaged on the wager!! Anyone got there new mobile number (sic)
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Any blue sky thinkers in the ‘Kremlin’(civic centre)? Un-doubtedly not;however some ideas to re-invigerate Wolverhampton on a local and national platform; A new 8 platform railway station ( cost savings of building away from live lines are enormous) incorporating provision for a link to new national high speed lines,along with coach/bus station built where Carvers/coach station is now; make outer section of ring road 4 lanes and one-way clockwise, upping traffic flows by 200%, inner-section for buses with multi-pick-up/drop-off, running anti-clockwise; all traffic barred inside ringroad between 8am and6pm; tram to run garrick st-cleveland rd-school st-darlington st-lichfield st-pipers row; bridge as I proposed over st peters ring road, as I first proposed to the council 4 years ago to council; demolish to ground floor the ‘Kremlin’ and incorporate new offices for council staff in proposed magistrates/county courts complex, supposidly to be built along st marks ring road and where existing markets are; move market back to it’s historic home in st peters gardens; demand the building of the western orbital bypass, but further west and develop the airport for 10 million passanger use ( this in itself will cut millions of passenger car journeys to other airports). Where would the monies come from? Easy, we in Wolverhampton receive about £4500/person of government spend against £6500/person in Scotland/Wales; £7500/person N.Ireland and a stonking £9500/person in London. So over the last 20 years alone, we in Wolverhampton and the West Midlands region have been short-changed some £150 billion in investment compared to Scotland and a whooping £450 billion compared to London. So come on local polititions/councillors/press etc, get shouting for our City/region or disappear and let some genuine fresh thinking people have a go !!!!
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Sainsburys already have a large store in the city centre, if they built this they’d just close the other one, just give it to tesco and let them get on with it
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