Council call for end to supermarket stalemate

It is now more than three years since planners at Rother Council approved applications by supermarket giants Sainsburys and Tesco to open a new store on the same site on land off Ferry Road.

It is also seven months down the line from when Rye MP Amber Rudd met with the supermarkets and other interested parties at Westminster and nothing has happened.

Sainsbury’s own the majority of the land on the former Thomas Peacocke Lower School site yet Tesco own the Queen Adelaide pub in Ferry Road which stands in the way of a proposed access road to the site.

Rother Council’s executive director of business operations Anthony Leonard said: “This is an unacceptable position for the community of Rye

to find themselves in, with the two prominent supermarkets unable or unwilling to reach agreement to help move forward this development site,”

Mr Leonard, in a recommendation to the council, went on to say: “It is therefore proposed that this Council write to the Secretary of State for

Business, Innovation and Skills seeking his intervention and support to find a solution for this longstanding problem.

Full story on page 5.

Caption: An artist’s impression of how a new Sainsburys store would look in Rye.