Highland waiting games

By David Doyle

Residents of Inverness are keen for Asda to build a new store to offset the dominance of Tesco. Yet infrastructure issues are delaying the scheme.

More than half of every £1 spent on groceries in Inverness goes to Tesco. The city, a stronghold of the Picts around 1,500 years ago, is now seen as the supermarket's fortress, a 'Tesco town'. The chain has three stores in Inverness, covering 116,000 sq ft, and has planning consent for a further 8,490 sq ft.

However, following a public inquiry, ministers are considering an application that would tip the balance away from the retailer.

For, despite an officers' report recommending refusal, last January ASDA was granted planning for a £27m, 75,000 sq ft store at Slackbuie Farm, to the south of the city centre. The scheme, to be developed with Ken Ross's Elphinstone Land, also includes a petrol station and five extra shops, which Elphinstone will own and let to tenants.

Yet because the scheme contradicts guidelines in the Inverness local plan, the proposal has gone to public inquiry. Tesco has written to the inquiry's principal officer, David Russell, asking for competition to 'not be a factor' in the decision whether or not to grant the scheme planning permission.

You take the roadworks

One potential sticking point that has emerged is the traffic measures that Asda will have to implement as a part of a section 75 agreement of community benefits. Asda has pledged £1.5m to upgrade the roadworks around the nearby Inshes roundabout to the east of the city, where Tesco has a supermarket, to allay concerns that its new store will cause overcrowding on the roads. Part of the land Asda would need is a 2 metre by 4 metre strip owned by Tesco.

Asda faces a further stumbling block in the form of a request from consortium Inverness Estates that the road upgrades take place before work on the store begins.

Slackbuie Farm, the 20 acre site where the Asda store is being developed, is jointly owned by Elphinstone and Hunter Capital Partners. Outline planning consent has been granted for a medical centre on part of the land, which has been sold to medical goods and pharmaceutical firm Assura Group.

(Abridged)