A planning appeal local inquiry is underway at the Royal Clifton Hotel regarding Sainsburys plans to develop the Homebase site on Meols Cop Retail Park.

The majority of the public are not aware that this meeting is taking place.





The planning application for the supermarket is now subject to an ongoing inquiry by the Government’s Planning Inspectorate. This is despite planning permission for the supermarket being previously granted Sefton Council.

The inquiry is expected to last into next week and is being held in the Osborne Suite.

this has to be stopped we dont need any more supermarkets in Southport. They will close the town centre one leaving another massive building empty... we need to fight this tooth and nail

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35340384

AS far as I am aware Homebase sold all 265 stores including Southport store to Australian retail giant Wesfarmers in February this year and all will be rebranded.

Southport Homebase has been sold to Australian company Bunnings along with 264 other stores.

Homebase will disappear from the UK market and be replaced by the Australian brand Bunnings after Home Retail Group accepted a £340m bid for the troubled DIY chain.

Bunnings, an Australian institution, is the country’s number one hardware retailer and will be hoping to bring its winning combination of low prices, huge range and excellent customer service to the UK market.

The acquisition of 265 Homebase stores will make it the second largest home improvement and garden retailer in the UK and Ireland and give it a position to challenge B&Q.

Watch out Wickes and B&Q: Bunnings is coming for your DIY customers

“Bunnings is well placed to unlock value from the Homebase business and has a proven track record in delivering growth, both organically and through acquisition,” said Richard Goyder, managing director of Bunnings owner Wesfarmers, which also owns the leading Australian supermarket, Coles.

“The £38bn UK home improvement and garden market is a large and growing market with strong fundamentals.”

Bunnings, which uses staff to front its television adverts, is also known for its “sausage sizzles” outside stores where local sports or community groups are allowed to set up stalls and sell food to customers.

Goyder sought to reassure investors over a move that comes with the Australian dollar having declined about 30% against the British pound over the past three years.

“The opportunity to enter this attractive market through the acquisition of Homebase has been comprehensively researched and carefully considered by Wesfarmers and Bunnings,”

Goyder said: “The Bunnings team has done a lot of work to make sure it understands the market and the opportunity, including having visited hundreds of stores, spending significant time researching the market and closely studying international retail expansions into the UK and other markets.”

The cost of overhauling the stores means the acquisition from the UK’s Home Retail Group is expected to have an immaterial effect on Wesfarmers’ earnings per share and return on equity for three years, after which it is projected to contribute positively.

"this has to be stopped we dont need any more supermarkets in Southport. They will close the town centre one leaving another massive building empty... we need to fight this tooth and nail"...........Sea salted Southport town centre is already finished under this council, the whole town is a mess, never like that prior to "going into Sefton" (if you are old enough to remember). By the way, I take it with Sainsbury's wanting to build a store, which would create jobs, improve/landscaping the area, you are against such a positive move. If John Pugh hadn't stuck his ore and tupenny's worth in it would have been built open and trading now!. Perhaps he has shares in Tesco as he has encouraged them to encroach into the town centre and villages!!. Did you go and look at the plans for Sainsuburys Sea Salted, probably not!. Usual keyboard killjoys!

Sainsburys have not said they'd close the Lord Street Store, what they did say was they would guarantee to keep it open for *at least* another 5 years. At the rate Lord street shops are closing it'll still be the last one to turn out the lights.

Our MP still feels there is room for more supermarkets in the town:

http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/ne...-open-10868162

As in a unit that size it'd be an artisan bread shop opening there.

I'm sure he's a nice man but our former RE teacher with a PhD in logic turned MP seems clueless on how to "fight for the town" as putting it simply:

1) we can't base our town around a supermarket
2) blocking things as your only action eventually isn't enough
3) we have multiple shopping areas in decline, blocking could just continue to create two
4) the town needs jobs especially if more homes are being built, using buzzwords like creating a digital creative economy something with no detail or basis is just noise
5) would taking trade off morrisons or tesco be a bad thing
6) seems no exploration of better deals like redevelopment of the Meols Cop routes in

Our incumbent MP and councillors have been around during the decline so why trust them to get us out of it as the only fighting they seem to do is with each other. Private investment is the best chance of improvement rather than these random heritage funds or section funds our cllrs say that they're bidding for then we never hear anything again.

I hope they go to Meols Cop a massive Sainsburys would be great, a lot better than having to go to Bamber Bridge.

Originally Posted by radar103

Southport Homebase has been sold to Australian company Bunnings along with 264 other stores.

Homebase will disappear from the UK market and be replaced by the Australian brand Bunnings after Home Retail Group accepted a £340m bid for the troubled DIY chain.

Bunnings, an Australian institution, is the country’s number one hardware retailer and will be hoping to bring its winning combination of low prices, huge range and excellent customer service to the UK market.

The acquisition of 265 Homebase stores will make it the second largest home improvement and garden retailer in the UK and Ireland and give it a position to challenge B&Q.

Watch out Wickes and B&Q: Bunnings is coming for your DIY customers

“Bunnings is well placed to unlock value from the Homebase business and has a proven track record in delivering growth, both organically and through acquisition,” said Richard Goyder, managing director of Bunnings owner Wesfarmers, which also owns the leading Australian supermarket, Coles.

“The £38bn UK home improvement and garden market is a large and growing market with strong fundamentals.”

Bunnings, which uses staff to front its television adverts, is also known for its “sausage sizzles” outside stores where local sports or community groups are allowed to set up stalls and sell food to customers.

Goyder sought to reassure investors over a move that comes with the Australian dollar having declined about 30% against the British pound over the past three years.

“The opportunity to enter this attractive market through the acquisition of Homebase has been comprehensively researched and carefully considered by Wesfarmers and Bunnings,”

Goyder said: “The Bunnings team has done a lot of work to make sure it understands the market and the opportunity, including having visited hundreds of stores, spending significant time researching the market and closely studying international retail expansions into the UK and other markets.”

The cost of overhauling the stores means the acquisition from the UK’s Home Retail Group is expected to have an immaterial effect on Wesfarmers’ earnings per share and return on equity for three years, after which it is projected to contribute positively.

Such a good company that they have removed the special 10% discount given to pensioners on a Tuesday previously available at Homebase stores.

Originally Posted by pepsi

I hope they go to Meols Cop a massive Sainsburys would be great, a lot better than having to go to Bamber Bridge.

Agreed^


Plus, I'd rather have the unit utilised than stood empty for ever more.


That said, significant work would be required on the road/traffic calming & traffic signal infrastucture in the locality if this 'mega' store was to go ahead, as traffic volumes would certainly increase.

Anyone heard anything else about the inquiry? It's almost two weeks since it started isn't it.

BC