Town chairman hopes Luton Council will 'make amends' after giving Aldi store the green light to compete with Power Court

Luton chairman David Wilkinson is hoping that Luton Borough Council will ‘work tirelessly’ to make amends for their decision to grant planning permission for an Aldi store at Gipsy Lane which he felt made ‘no sense.’

Back in February, the Council agreed the new store could be built on the site, despite the Hatters wanting to build a supermarket on their Power Court site just under a kilometre away.

Despite having two applications for a Judicial Review rejected by the High Court, 2020 then applied to the Court of Appeal after it felt its legal arguments had not received a full hearing from a senior judge.

However the case was lost last week, a decision described by 2020 Developments chief operating officer Michael Moran as a 'real shame', while the Council has vowed to recover its costs defending the legal challenge.

Although Town intend to announce their latest plans for Power Court this month, writing in his programme notes ahead of the game with Blackburn on Saturday, Wilkinson said: “On a negative note, we were naturally very disappointed by the Council's decision to approve planning for an Aldi store at Gypsy Lane, and even more disappointed that the high court system is seemingly avoiding the issue.

"It seems the authorities can get away with anything these days.

"The point is, we achieved planning consent at Power Court and in the current economic climate it makes no sense to allow competition so close by.

"Every individual piece of our plans are contingent upon each other, and if one piece falls, the whole plan may need to be restructured.

"It feels like investing millions in obtaining a planning consent has no protection anymore, especially as we had such a fantastic operator lined up, which will now fall by wayside.

"We trust that this is an isolated episode and we can move forward together to complete the project.

"All we hope is that the Council appreciates that this will affect Power Court and will work tirelessly to make amends as we approach our planning amendments for both Newlands Park and Power Court."