Home Bargains ‘not linked’ to new retail store proposed for Derry's Waterside

The discount retailer Home Bargains has moved to distance itself from a proposed new store at Crescent Link in the Waterside area of Derry..

It comes after a meeting Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Planning Committee was told last month chain store was planning a second new store in Derry which would create up to 50 new jobs.

Work is currently ongoing at a new Home Bargains store at the former site of Budget DIY on Strand Road which is set to create 100 jobs when it opens early next year.

An application had been received by the council by Genova North West Ltd, for a new mixed retailing unit at Unit 4, Crescent Link Retail Park.

Speaking at that meeting, Genova North West Ltd. director, Ciaran Murdock and Tom Stokes, of TSA Planning told councillors that Home Bargains was hoping to open a new store at the site.

At the meeting, councillors went against the recommendation of planners to refuse the application, on the basis that it would bring new jobs to the city.

Mr Murdock’s also said work would be undertaken would improve the ‘bottleneck’ structure at Crescent Link which causes considerable traffic congestion.

However, since that meeting, Home Bargains has issued a letter to council stating that they will be not opening a new store in the Waterside and are not linked to the application by Genova North West Ltd.

The letter, from Eamonn Loughrey, the agent for Home Bargains in Northern Ireland, emerged at yesterday’s meeting of council’s Planning Committee Genova North West Ltd.

It stated: “I have been asked by Home Bargains to advise that the application for a discount retailer in Crescent Link is not linked to Home Bargains.

“Home Bargains have seen comments in the press that they will be opening the store, but that is incorrect.”

The meeting heard from Andy Stephens of Matrix Planning, who are opposed to the application. He told the meeting that the figures provided to councillors at the previous meeting were ‘misleading’, adding that ‘Home Bargains had never committed to this scheme’.

Meanwhile, Andrew Ryan, of TCT Solicitors, representing the applicant, said that they were ‘deeply disappointed that Home Bargains had withdrawn’ and that they had not intended to ‘mislead’ the committee.

He added that it was ‘hardly surprising’ that Home Bargains had taken this decision given that it had ‘given that it had taken three years for this application to reach council’.

The SDLP’s Tina Gardiner proposed that given the ‘misinformation’ councillors received at the last meeting, the committee should now accept the planners’ recommendation to refuse the application.

The proposal went to a vote but failed, with a proposal by the Sinn Fein councillor Christopher Jackson to defer the issue for one month then approved after a majority vote.