Tesco bid to resolve pharmacy setback
8:47am Saturday 2nd August 2008
TESCO staff are working hard to overcome a setback with its in-store pharmacy in Dorchester.
A spokesman for the supermarket said the company had unintentionally failed to apply for planning permission for the pharmacy, but was trying to resolve the issue quickly.
Planning officers at West Dorset District Council have written to Tesco pointing out that permission must be sought, despite Dorset Primary Care Trust and the Duchy of Cornwall already approving the development.
Work had already begun on the pharmacy at the Weymouth Avenue store.
Principal planning officer Darren Rogers said: "We have pointed out to Tesco that work currently being carried out within the store to provide a pharmacy does not appear to be in accordance with the existing planning permission.
"Tesco has agreed to hoard off the area designated for the pharmacy and to remove all signs associated with it.
"The company is in the process of drawing up a planning application to vary the existing planning conditions that, if approved, will allow the pharmacy to operate."
Tesco was originally given planning consent for its store in 1989.
Pharmacists elsewhere in Dorchester have told the Dorset Echo that the development could destroy their livelihoods.
Mike Terry, owner of the Market Pharmacy in South Street, said: "My personal view is that it will jeopardise the services that we offer our customers.
"Tesco has already taken a lot of trade away from the town centre."
If the project goes ahead, the Tesco pharmacy will be open for more than 100 hours a week.
Melanie Chiswell, regional corporate affairs manager for Tesco, said: "We are trying to work out why this has happened because we certainly wouldn't go ahead and build a pharmacy if we didn't in all honesty believe we had planning permission.
"There seems to have been a misunderstanding and it is something we are very keen to sort out."
She added: "We don't force people to use our facilities, we are providing consumers with a choice."