Defeat for retail giant Tesco in resort's three-way store wars

About 400 people were at Whitby Community College yesterday to hear councillors debate the merits of the three competing schemes, which have polarised opinion in the town for more than a year.

Planners had recommended refusal of Sainsbury's proposal for a new store in the east of the town, describing the site as "peripheral and remote from the town centre" but Scarborough Council's planning and development committee decided to allow the scheme, subject to 26 planning conditions.

The Co-op's plan to expand its existing store by the town's railway station was also approved – as council officers had recommended – but Tesco's controversial proposal to build a new store on green field land was turned down.

More than 3,700 objectors had petitioned against the Tesco development, which would have been built at High Stakesby under a deal with the Sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete, based at Sneaton Castle. It would have also included affordable housing, extra care housing, a medical centre and a petrol station, but planners said Tesco had put forward "little evidence" to suggest the extra care housing and medical centre were needed.

The pressure group Whitby Residents Against Tesco Superstore had

claimed the proposed supermarket would drive shopkeepers out of business, destroy the character of the town and increase congestion.

Tesco had argued the store would have had little impact on town-centre shops but a retail consultant told the council that suggestion was "seriously flawed".

Scarborough Council's cabinet member for regeneration and planning, Derek Bastiman, who watched the meeting, said he was "very impressed" by how the proposals were debated.

"I think the decision to hold the committee meeting in Whitby was very prudent," he said.

"It enabled many interested residents to attend the meeting and hear

the debate around each of the applications."