Aldi victory in 10-year fight to sell flats at market price
RETAIL giant Aldi will not be forced to sell flats above a store at a knock-down rate after complaining the development would lose money.
It means that 22 flats above the Aldi Maypole store in south Birmingham can finally be finished after a decade of wrangling.
City planners freed the company from its legal obligation to offer eight of the flats at the discounted affordable rate after being told of a planning department report which claimed the development would still make £638,000 profit was inaccurate.
Council planning officers admitted a ‘miscommunication’ saying that the profit projections dated back to when the project was first designed in 2007/8.
A property market slump and rise in construction costs since then meant the profit would be all but wiped out they explained.
The planning committee accepted the explanation and agreed that the flats, which have been unfinished, could at long last be fitted out and sold at full market value.
Cllr Barry Henley (Lab, Brandwood) said: “This has been infuriating. The supermarket does make a profit and in a fair world that profit would be taken against the flats. But those are not the rules of the game and that can’t happen.”
He said that for pragmatic reasons, to get the flats occupied, he would support Aldi.
The only member committee to vote of the against 11-strong was Cllr Tahir Ali (Lab, Nechells) who accused Aldi of being “filthy rich capitalists” and “waving two fingers” at the planning department.
The council’s chief planning officer Richard Goulborn admitted that assessing the profitability of developments given volatile property and construction prices are ‘dark arts’.
Local MP Steve McCabe (Selly Oak) had earlier informed the committee that 89 per cent of residents in a survey just wanted the flats finished, regardless of the affordable discount.
He said: “I’ve been pushing Aldi to bring the 22 flats above their Maypole store into use for years now but their bottom line is either the flats are developed and sold on the open market or they will continue to sit empty.
“This is obviously a very unsatisfactory outcome but given there is no obligation to bring the flats into use because of conditions of the planning permission, at this point down the line and after 10 years of the flats lying empty this seems the only way these flats will be developed.”
An Aldi spokesman said: “We are pleased with the decision, which is a positive step forward toward the delivery of the flats.”