SAINSBURY believes that it has cleared an important hurdle in its much delayed effort to build a store on the outskirts of Coleraine, following 18 months of legal wrangles.
The local council has accepted the recommendation of the Planning Service to allow the 50,000 square foot development with 600 parking spaces at Dunhill Road.
The planning service will now report back to the Department of the Environment (DoE), which would decide over the next few weeks whether or not to allow the construction of the store to go ahead. A spokesman for the company said that he was now optimistic that final clearance would be given.
Sainsbury, which has already spent in the region of £1 million preparing the site, had intended Coleraine to be its first Northern Ireland store, but although the DoE originally gave the goahead, this was overturned after objectors to the scheme - alarmed at the possible impact on the retail trade in the town centre - obtained a judicial review, which asked the DoE to examine this aspect of the scheme.
Meanwhile, a stockroom on the second floor of the Marks and Spencer store in the centre of Belfast is to be converted into an additional 17,500 square feet of retailing space as part of an £8 million investment which could create up to 30 full time and part time jobs.
