Developer hits out at obstacle
The multi-millionaire developer battling to build a cinema, bowling alley and bingo hall in Cannock pleaded today with the owners of a restaurant holding up the entire development to talk to him. The multi-millionaire developer battling to build a cinema, bowling alley and bingo hall in Cannock pleaded today with the owners of a restaurant holding up the entire development to talk to him. Developer Fred Pritchard, pictured, claimed owners of the Padma restaurant in Walsall Road had put up a wall of silence and ignored his firm's letters and calls for the last two years following an initial meeting. The restaurant's bosses need to sell up before work on Avon Plaza can start and have already been offered money and an almost identical location within the new complex. Cannock Chase Council has already decided it would be prepared to issue Compulsory Purchase Orders, which force landowners to sell, to get the scheme moving and Mr Pritchard said such action would now be asked for. Mr Pritchard said: "We have offered them really good money, a position back in that building virtually at the same spot, we have offered them alternative premises a bit of a way from the area, but they just will not speak to us. "They won't reply to emails, our solicitors' emails, letters, phone calls, nothing. This facility is for the community and is wanted by everyone I talk to and it's all being held up by that one landowner." Read the full story in the Express & Star.
Developer Fred Pritchard, pictured, claimed owners of the Padma restaurant in Walsall Road had put up a wall of silence and ignored his firm's letters and calls for the last two years following an initial meeting. The restaurant's bosses need to sell up before work on Avon Plaza can start and have already been offered money and an almost identical location within the new complex.
Cannock Chase Council has already decided it would be prepared to issue Compulsory Purchase Orders, which force landowners to sell, to get the scheme moving and Mr Pritchard said such action would now be asked for. Mr Pritchard said: "We have offered them really good money, a position back in that building virtually at the same spot, we have offered them alternative premises a bit of a way from the area, but they just will not speak to us.
"They won't reply to emails, our solicitors' emails, letters, phone calls, nothing. This facility is for the community and is wanted by everyone I talk to and it's all being held up by that one landowner.
"I have been ready, willing and able to deliver this for two years or more and other negotiations are now complete but nobody at the Padma will talk to me. We are requesting the council to issue the Compulsory Purchase Order procedure against the Padma and that will be in the not too distant future.
"But we are willing to talk to them at any stage while that is going on; they have nothing to lose and we would be paying them more money than they would get through a CPO, so I don't know why they won't just sit round a table and discuss it."
Avon Plaza will feature an eight-screen Vue cinema, bingo hall, restaurants, shops, car park and 22-lane bowling alley.
