Tesco's ditched land in Wolverhampton may become housing

Developers have expressed interest in turning the site into housing.

Wolverhampton City Council has met with executives at the supermarket chain after it revealed its long-awaited project for the Royal Hospital would no longer be going ahead, 14 years after purchasing the land.

Tesco executives visited the city council's leader Roger Lawrence to discuss what they would do now. The development was one of 46 to have been dropped by Tesco as it tries to save £250 million to plug a financial hole left by last year's profits scandal.

Tesco is continuing to do restoration work on the previously derelict hospital until March.

Councillor Lawrence said: "What we wanted from them was a commitment to work with us to develop alternative proposals.

"We've urged them to bring forward plans to market the site in three blocks - the bus garage, the hospital and the surrounding land.

"They've agreed to let us put some people in so we can see what further works are needed."

He said he was expecting the site to become 'largely residential'.

"We have been speaking to house builders and they have expressed interest.

"It's a good site, by the Metro stop and close to the city centre."

He said the council had told Tesco it wanted it to consult with people living in the All Saints area near the hospital about what they would do next.

Tesco had been accused by city MP Pat McFadden of having 'betrayed' the people of Wolverhampton.

He said today: "The local community of All Saints feel very let down by Tesco's decision to cancel the development. They had been promised a £60 million investment and hundreds of new jobs. The last thing people want is for the site to lie undeveloped for a lengthy period."

The Tesco saga dragged on because it had originally looked to move from building a store at the hospital to land on Raglan Street after Sainsbury's dropped proposals to move there.

But Sainsbury's changed its mind and refused to sell its land to Tesco, despite the latter being favoured by the city council and promising to turn the Royal Hospital into homes, a leisure complex and offices for the Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust, which was subsequently abolished.

The stores battled it out going all the way to the Supreme Court. Both then got the go-ahead for stores, Sainsbury's on the disputed Raglan Street site and Tesco at the Royal Hospital.

Tesco carried out conservation work but never got on to building the store.

It gave repeated assurances last year that it would go ahead.

But then its profits were found to have been dramatically overstated and the company began reviewing sites to cut costs.

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