Doubt cast over housing and supermarket scheme

DEVELOPERS have resubmitted plans for a controversial supermarket and housing scheme in the East End – after residents threatened to take legal action. Goldquest is reapplying for planning permission to knock down a former Safeway building, just off Roman

DEVELOPERS have resubmitted plans for a controversial supermarket and housing scheme in the East End - after residents threatened to take legal action.

Goldquest is reapplying for planning permission to knock down a former Safeway building, just off Roman Road in Bow, despite being given the go-ahead by the Town Hall last November.

Under the plans five buildings, up to ten storeys high, would provide over 200 flats as well as retail space for a planned Tesco store, on the site in Gladstone Place.

The plans were put in again after the Bow Safeway Site Action Group complained that Tower Hamlets Council had failed to consider the environmental impact of the scheme.

Kate Gould, speaking on behalf of the action group, said the council had not considered the impact of more residents on busses, primary schools, GP surgeries and other local services.

The property lawyer, of Cardigan Road, said: "We all want a new anchor supermarket as soon as possible. But this scheme is not the answer.

"It will take a lot longer to build all those flats than it would simply to rebuild the supermarket."

Housing Group Circle Anglia, which are set to develop the site, have not yet given a date for when building work would start.