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Centros pushed to pull Lancaster plan

Domenic Donatantonio, Planning, 3 July 2009

English Heritage has called on a developer to scrap plans to regenerate Lancaster city centre after a public inquiry became a war of words.

Lancaster City Council has now withdrawn from an inquiry into whether several Georgian buildings should be demolished to enable Canal Corridor North to proceed. Centros Miller, which submitted plans for the £140 million mixed-use scheme, had already refused to attend (Planning, 19 June, p3).

An English Heritage spokesperson said: "Now the council has pulled out, we believe that Centros should withdraw its application. This will avoid more time and public money being spent on a proposal that would cause lasting damage to the city's character."

Centros chief executive Richard Wise had maintained that English Heritage failed to engage with it in the masterplanning process, which began in 2005, in a meaningful way.

"After we made significant changes in response to its input to our subsequent application, it stated that it was happy for the council to determine the plans," he said.

"While many people were surprised that we chose not to appear at the inquiry, we felt strongly that we should not have to finance a process not of our making."

The council cited several major issues raised at the inquiry as behind its decision to pull out. However, its head of planning Andrew Dobson insisted that it still wants to ascertain whether development is in principle permissible in the area.