Campaigners have won the latest round in their battle to stop supermarket giants Sainsbury’s opening a store in the old Highbury Vale police station.
The application was pulled from a committee meeting this week after town hall planners recommended it for refusal.
In December more than 50 people, including traders, turned out in Blackstock Road to protest against plans to open a Local store in the Grade-II listed building.
Sainsbury’s, which already has a local store half a mile away in the same road, sparked a backlash last summer when it made the application. And it was reignited after a retail impact assessment was submitted in December, which protesters said ignored the impact on shops a stone’s throw away, like Arsenal Wines.
The family run business would be forced to close after 35 years if the store opened, owner Hitesh Patel told the Gazette.
But a notice from Islington’s planning department last week said: “The proposed reasons for refusal are the proposed arrangements for servicing the development are unacceptable; and the applicants have failed to demonstrate that the proposed development will not harm the town centre.”
It does, however, go on to say the developers are likely to return with amended plans, so the fight may not be over yet.
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