Press News
Out-of-town complex critic says he wants what’s right for York
9:25am Saturday 11th February 2012
ONE of the leading critics of proposals for a huge retail complex on the edge of York has denied that his own out-of-town store creates a conflict of interest.
Adam Sinclair, who chairs York Chamber of Trade and owns the Mulberry Hall fine china and crystal shop in Stonegate, has confirmed he also “100 per cent” owns the China China store at York Designer Outlet.
The chamber and individual traders in the centre of York are opposing plans for John Lewis and Marks & Spencer stores at Monks Cross in a development which would also include a community stadium for York City FC and York City Knights, saying the new retail arrivals would ruin city-centre businesses.
Oakgate (Monks Cross) Ltd’s planning application is expected to go before City of York Council’s planning committee next month.
Mr Sinclair is among the traders who have called for the plans to be rejected, but says his involvement in China China, which dates back to 1998, is “totally different” to the debate currently raging about York’s retail future.
He said that during construction of the designer outlet in 1998, he was told by the Royal Doulton group that one of Mulberry Hall’s competitors was negotiating for space there. He said: “I was informed that Royal Doulton and McArthur Glen wanted to do it with me as the incumbent specialist in York and to build bridges with the city centre.
“Had I not done this, I believe the survival of my business would have been in jeopardy. The current planning debate is totally different – it is not about me, Oakgate’s managing director Richard France, York City chairman Jason McGill, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer or council leader James Alexander.
“It is about what is right for the city of York, guided by local, regional and national planning policies, so I don’t accept there is any conflict of interest whatsoever. Once the current planning process is resolved, we will all go our own way to ensure we survive as businesses and individuals, whether or not that is the best thing for York.”
Mr Sinclair said John Lewis’s move into the massive Cribbs Causeway shopping development outside Bristol, despite having originally opposed it, was an example of how planning debates stretched beyond individual businesses.
He said: “I am not the only person with business interests inside and outside the city centre.
“I have never sought to personalise this debate – it is important that everybody sticks to the planning and economic issues – nor have we sought to oppose existing out-of-town developments, any proposed new stadium or, for that matter, York City’s current Bootham Crescent ground.”