Sainsbury’s has admitted it has been operating in breach of the licence for its Dundee store for 18 months.
It has been operating twice the amount of non-food item floorspace as it is allowed to in its Broughty Ferry store.
The astonishing admission, by the company’s town planning head Jeff Wilson, brought consternation from councillors at the development quality committee meeting at the City Chambers on Monday.
However, despite some heated debate and strong questioning of Mr Wilson, the committee voted to allow the store to have an 80-20% split, in effect maintaining the status quo.
The admission came while Mr Wilson was attempting to persuade councillors to increase the store’s non-food item provision to 30% of the store’s space, instead of the previous 10% it had permission for.
However, Mr Wilson confirmed the store had been operating accidentally, he later stressed at 20% of its floor space for non-food items since January last year.
In a presentation to the committee, Mr Wilson told councillors the store needed to change to meet the changing needs of its customers.
He said, if successful, the change to a 70-30% split of food and non-food retailing would spark a multi-million-pound regeneration of the store and improve on its already ”special relationship” with Broughty Ferry.
He also argued recent studies had shown Broughty Ferry was a thriving centre and had continued to thrive, despite previous fears over the supermarket’s adverse effect on the district shopping centre.
Mr Wilson confirmed a suggestion by Ferry councillor Ken Guild that the supplementary 20% application was a ”fall-back” application which would officially allow them to trade at the same level as they had been doing in breach of its licence since January 2011.
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Mr Guild pointed out that despite Mr Wilson’s assertion that Broughty was booming, there was concern the area’s vitality and viability could be adversely affected by allowing the change.
He said in the past month two new charity shops had opened, one in the premises of a formerly well-established clothing shop, while another charity shop had closed due to the competition.
Fellow Ferry councillor Derek Scott added that he himself had been a trader in the area and knew by experience the effect even a slight change could make to an independent shop’s profitability.
Councillor Guild moved to refuse the 70-30 application, which was agreed by the councillors.
However, when it came to the 80-20 split, Councillor Kevin Keenan said: ”Sainsbury’s honesty in bringing this to our attention has got them into trouble, but I think if we refused this and they were to take it to appeal they would win hands down.”
Councillor Ken Lynn moved approval, saying the store had been operating at that level for months and nobody had noticed.
The 80-20% application was approved by 13 votes to 11, with Councillor Asif abstaining.
Afterwards Mr Wilson said he was ”very pleased” the application had been approved.
He told The Courier he believed the licence breach could be put down to ”little bits and pieces of refurbishment” and stock changes at the store over the years.
”I don’t believe it was deliberate, which was why I submitted the application when I discovered it,” he said, adding it was a change in the legislation which had triggered the discovery.
However, Broughty Ferry Traders’ Association chairman Sandro Paladini said the 90-10% agreement had been put in place when the supermarket was built on the site ”for a very good reason”.
”The only thing that has changed in the intervening years is their desire to take a larger share of the local non-food market,” he said.