Rovers sue Sainsburys

A HUGE question mark hangs over hopes of building a new £40 million stadium for Bristol Rovers due to a legal dispute between the club and Sainsbury's over building a new store at the Memorial Stadium.

The Bristol Post can reveal that the club has issued a writ against the supermarket chain for what it claims to be breaches of contract over the planned redevelopment of its current ground in Horfield.

Rovers claim they are out of pocket to the tune of nearly £340,000 as a result of legal fees and soaring building costs, due to Sainsbury's allegedly dragging its feet over the scheme.

Despite the relationship between the parties obviously going sour, the Post understands that the club insists Sainsbury's is legally obliged to build the new store, which is crucial to funding the new stadium at the University of the West of England's Frenchay campus.

The 16-page writ, lodged with the High Court in London, alleges that Sainsbury's does not "sincerely wish" to go ahead with the new store.

The company is understood to still have some time to file a defence to the legal action. No one was available for comment yesterday.

The club's concerns were first raised last November, the same month that the pressure group TRASHorfield started a legal challenge to the city council's decision to allow the new store to be built.

These concerns were fuelled by reports that supermarket chains were cutting back from building large stores across the country, opting instead to open up more High Street shops, which were considered more profitable. What also gave rise for concern was that Sainsbury's was not actively supporting the city council in fighting the legal challenge by TRASHorfield.

The writ states that the club's chairman Nick Higgs and finance director Toni Watola met with Sainsbury's at the end of November 2013, stressing the importance of going ahead with the new store as soon as possible. This led to Sainsbury's submitting a planning application to vary the terms of the planning consent for the new store by allowing lorries to make deliveries between 5am and midnight on any day of the week.

According to the writ, the supermarket chain's position is that unless the planning condition over lorry deliveries could be changed, then the planning consent was not acceptable. The council refused permission for the planning condition to be changed because of the detrimental effect on local residents.

Sainsbury's allegedly told the club that as a result, they were entitled to terminate the contract.

In February, the supermarket chain informed the club that it would not appeal against the refusal to vary the planning consent.

The club responded by commissioning its own independent experts to carry out a noise assessment if the consent was changed. They also sought the advice of a barrister who specialised in planning law.

The writ alleges that in a meeting between Mr Higgs, Mr Watola and Sainsbury's regional development manager Ben Littman in April, Mr Higgs asked whether Sainsbury's was "still intending to walk away" from the Memorial Stadium site.

Mr Littman replied "Yes", the writ claims.

In June, the club repeated its offer to pay for an appeal and any extra measures that might be needed to prevent any noise outbreak as a result of lorries making deliveries to the new store.

After more legal wrangling, the two sides agreed in July that Sainsbury's would lodge an appeal, while the club would submit its own application for varying the planning permission.

These matters are still outstanding but even if they are resolved, it still begs the question whether the new store or stadium will ever be built.

Mr Higgs said that for legal reasons he was unable to comment.



Read more: www.bristolpost.co.uk/Bristol-Rovers-insist-stadium-ahead-despite/story-22818740-detail/story.html#ixzz3BTt6oUIe

So now at last we know what's been going on.
Would tend to agree with Roverdrive.
Goodnight Irene!

Well, that's Sainsbury out of bounds for the rest of my life then

Fuuuuuuuuu

Well I guess it also explains why Higgs hasn't been as open about it as he could have been. If you're legally bound then publically saying anything could be to your detriment.

Be interesting to see the take of those who felt it was not a viable financial option anyway and questioned the plans throughout.

Personally, this news doesn't come as a shock but certainly is devastating. Even though it now seems a completely ott scheme now we are non league, the future of the club has definitely taken a massive knock.

Its funny really how we got screwed by those opposing the capitalists and now we get screwed by tge capitalists themselves. Where's Karl Marx when you need him.

Trash probably knew that the new CEO at Sainsbury's would have a different view to large supermarkets funding sports stadiums and delayed it long enough for the rot to set in. Backs against the wall time, but we're good at that. Time to re-ignite the Twerton spirit and get the club back into the league.

This could definitely be the beginning of the end for Bristol Rovers FC.

Debatable whether it's even the beginning - I think losing to Mansfield on the last day of the season was probably the beginning.

IMO we are now in the proverbial coffin, the lid has been placed on and the first nail has been hammered in.

2-4-1 on Indian Meals and a bottle of Taste the Difference Savignon Blanc

was just chatting about this to my dad the other day. It may be that the best scenario is exactly this. Sue sainsburys for being dicks and then sell tge land for houses or a community vegetable patch to make up the shortfall or even a higher net than the original. Dunno mate. Its all nonsense now given where we are.

One thing is this. If we chose to redevelop, all those trash monkeys shot themselves in the foot with their last minute switch to using the sports war memorial as an argument. Carstairs may even offer to help build it.