One of the region’s longest awaited regeneration schemes has finally been given the green light.
More than 13 years after Asda first tried to build a supermarket in Shirley, Solihull, the supermarket giant will finally get its way by becoming the anchor store in Parkgate – an ambitious multi-use scheme to regenerate the commercial heart of Shirley.
The scheme was given the go-ahead after a recent public inquiry and will comprise the Asda superstore, 28 shops, 27 houses, 23 apartments and 55 retirement flats.
While developers Shirley Advance celebrate, the approval by government inspector David Collingford represents a damning indictment of the decision by Solihull Council’s planning committee to refuse the scheme in December 2010 and again in February this year.
He also ruled the council should pay the developer’s costs, a figure that has yet to be established but is likely to be significant.
At the inquiry Mr Collingford, expressed disappointment that 13 years after heading an inquiry to build an Asda supermarket across the road from the site of the proposed development, the matter was still being discussed.
The planning refusal saw the council stuck between a rock and a hard place as highways and planning officers recommended approval and in principle the council supported revitalising Shirley.
For the duration of a lengthy process battle lines were drawn on party-political lines, the Liberal Democrats opposing it and the Conservatives supporting it.
At the time of the December and February planning decisions the Liberal Democrats still shared a slender grip on Solihull Council and even though there were divisions within the local party over Parkgate the opponents won the day.
In a lengthy decision document Mr Collingford said: “I consider that the scheme would form an essential element in the long-sought aim to enhance the ‘town centre’ and to foster the vitality and viability of Shirley.”
It was in the mid-1990s that Asda first applied to build a supermarket on the former Powergen site at the junction of Stratford Road and Haslucks Green Road, a plan which was refused following a public enquiry.
But in 2004 an alternative scheme, the New Heart for Shirley was proposed and in the spring of 2006 permission was granted for the controversial scheme after being referred to the Government Office for the West Midlands.
Eventually the scheme was endorsed by the then Secretary of State but the recession led to it being mothballed.
A scaled-down development (Parkgate) was later proposed but a new planning application had to be submitted as the previous approval had expired.
The climax was last December’s meeting when Liberal Democrat councillors, backed by Labour, turned it down on the grounds of lack of car parking.
