Tesco plans superstore build at ex-Rover Longbridge site |
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Tue, 19 Apr 2005 01:00
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Life in the world goes on at as much the same pace despite any and all adversity. Who can know that better than car maker MG Rover, which recently went bust. The Longbridge site once owned by MG Rover can possibly be taken over by Tesco, the supermarket giant for the building of a new supermarket.
Tesco’s Plans of constructing a huge market store on the erstwhile Rover’s Longbridge site seem to be underway. However, leader of the TGWU, Tony Woodley, had written off any such plans when MG Rover initially went into administration. He had, instead, emphasized that neither his union nor he had any intentions of turning the Birmingham plant into a hypermarket.
| Yet, Tesco, the country’s first retailer recording annual profits of £2 billion and above last week, is contemplating construction of a store at the 25,000sq ft plot on the land that was sold by the collapsed MG Rover in January to developers. Meanwhile, it is being said that £57 million was paid by St Modwen Properties for the 400 acre land, albeit in two transactions divided between 2003 and 2004. Since then, it has been seeking consent for building a superstore on that land.
Nevertheless, a Tesco spokeswoman preferred to remain secretive about other details of the issue and said that, “We’ve been interested in looking at sites in that area and would be interested in looking at early plans. But nothing has been decided and nothing is definite and our plans have not changed as a result of recent developments in that area.”
Moreover, last week when MG Rover announced bankruptcy, Woodley apparently comforted the car maker’s workers and their families that possibilities of a revival for the plant still existed. He is also reported to have said, “We don’t want to set people’s hopes high... but we do need to realise it’s not our intentions to see this plant become a supermarket and disappear overnight.”
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