Shops replace planned tavern

Press, 27 February 1984, Page 9

Shops replace planned tavern

Controversial plans for a tavern in Centaurus Road have been dropped by the developer, Industrial Holdings, Ltd, in favour of a sixshop complex on the same site.

The original plan for a neighbourhood tavern attracted 1324 objections. An independent commissioner appointed by the Heathcote County Council, Mr J. M. McKenzie, allowed the objections and rejected the application for the tavern. Several days after the decision was announced at the end of last year, a spokesman for the company, Mr M. J. Brooks, said the decision would definitely be taken to appeal. Last evening, Industrial Holdings’ managing director, Mr R. H. Smith, said he had decided that the com-

pany did not want to take the tavern proposal any further, and would proceed instead with the plan to build six shops. At the council’s hearing Mr Brooks had given evidence as a town planner and marketing executive for Industrial Holdings. He said he doubted that the company could attract other suitable businesses to the site proposed for the tavern. “We have changed our opinion,” Mr Smith said, when asked about Mr Brooks’s evidence. He said Mr Brooks no longer worked for him.

The new shops would provide services not already in the area, Mr Smith said. Work would begin on the site within the next two or three months, and would be finished before Christmas, he said.