The Taupo town centre is safe from the threat of a big-box retail park on the town's outskirts, at least for the medium term.
The National Trading Company, which owns Pak'n Save and New World operating company Foodstuffs, and Advance Property Group and NML Holdings, had proposed to put a supermarket and a big-box retail development on the East Taupo Arterial.
But local retailers, Towncentre Taupo and the Taupo District Council feared that allowing retailing there would suck the life out of the Taupo town centre.
Similar developments in Whakatane, Rotorua and Hamilton have dealt near fatal-blows to their city centres, which now struggle.
So Taupo retailers are over the moon with a newly-released Environment Court interim decision which upholds the council's stance on not allowing retail activities outside the town centre.