Foodstuffs tries for new consent for closed supermarket

Pak'N Save's owner has backed away from a Court of Appeal case over its North Shore supermarket and is instead trying for a new resource consent.

The move could see the supermarket open in the next few months, after the owner decided not to continue with litigation.

Murray Jordan, general manager of property development at Foodstuffs (Auckland), said the case, due to go to court in Wellington on June 6, had been adjourned and a new resource consent would be lodged for the Pak'N Save.

Foodstuffs had brought the appeal in an attempt to overturn a decision from the High Court at Auckland last year which ruled the supermarket on Wairau Rd illegal.

Foodstuffs has since fenced the completed building, hoping its appeal would succeed and the supermarket open this winter.

Litigation on the building dates back more than a year.

Last winter, rival supermarket owner Progressive Enterprises took Pak'N Save owner the National Trading Co of New Zealand - a Foodstuffs (Auckland) subsidiary - to court, with the North Shore City Council, to block the project.

Progressive, owner of the Foodtown, Woolworths and Countdown supermarket chains, joined business group Northcote Mainstreet Inc in the action and won. Justice David Baragwanath ruled the council was wrong not to notify the application to build the supermarket.

He found the council's decision to grant permission for the building on a non-notified basis was invalid.

The council should not have made the consent non-notified without allowing Transit adequate time to consider the impact of the supermarket on the nearby motorway.

However, Jordan said an adjournment was being sought now that Transit had confirmed that having looked at traffic implications, its interests were not adversely affected.

This meant Foodstuffs would lodge a new resource consent application with the council.

The Pak'N Save was due to open in August last year but work on the site stopped last June after the High Court decision.

The completed supermarket has since remained shut.

Foodstuffs is now waiting for a new hearing date on its second resource consent application.

Progressive is expected to seek that the second consent be notified and lodge an objection.