The next round in Mernda’s battle of the supermarket giants will play out next week.
Whittlesea councillors will decide whether to push ahead with a permit for a Coles supermarket after Planning Minister Matthew Guy offered to override the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal’s refusal handed down in May.
The VCAT hearing was originally called by Coles, which thought the council would find against them. But it was later taken up by Woolworths, objecting to the Coles go-ahead.
Woolworths is majority owner of Mernda’s town centre development permit and owns 25 hectares on the south-west corner of the intersection of Bridge Inn and Plenty roads
According to the council, Woolworths proposes to build a $100 million shopping centre with 80 mixed-use shops, two department stores and two supermarkets, Woolworths and Coles.
The Coles proposal is for a 2.4-hectare site on the north-west corner of the Bridge Inn and Plenty roads intersection.
Its plans include a supermarket, medical centres, childcare, gymnasium or associated retail, residential and office spaces. VCAT voted down the Coles proposal on the basis that if it went ahead, the council’s plans to create a compact, pedestrian-oriented and traditional mixed-use town centre would be “frustrated and potentially thwarted”.
Coles argued that being in the same complex as Woolworths, with the opposition as landlord, would jeopardise competitiveness and give away retail advantages.
Mr Guy agreed, saying: “It is not good enough to have a single supermarket provider controlling every designated retail site in the growth corridor.”
