Tesco projects prompt legal action and redevelopment wrangles

Campaigners fighting plans by Tesco to fell 200 trees to make way for a new store in Somerset have been removed from the site at Shepton Mallet.

The retail giant won a High Court order to evict the activists, some of whom had been living in a network of tree-houses and walkways.

The store development was granted detailed planning permission last year by Mendip District Council.

In a related development, Tesco has signalled it would be prepared to drop plans to build a huge retail store on the site of the former Vaux Brewery in Sunderland, provided planning permission for a new store is approved elsewhere in the city.

Tesco owns the site, overlooking the River Wear, and has been embroiled in a wrangle with local regeneration consortium Arc, which wants the land to form part of an ambitious city centre urban renewal scheme designed by architect Piers Gough which would provide Sunderland with a new skyline.

The Deputy Prime Minister has just called in these proposals for determination.

Roger Milne

3 March 2006