New Pharmacy for Kenton in Newcastle after Boots Closure
The city of Newcastle has been one of the areas hardest hit by the closure of Boots and Lloyds pharmacies in the last couple of years. We are acting in multiple applications across the city and Kenton is the first one to receive a decision.
A total of 9 applications were submitted by various parties, all seeking permission to open a pharmacy at the Kenton shopping parade where Boots had previously operated from. Of these 9 applications, 3 made it to an oral hearing where the Panel had to decide firstly, if there was a need for a pharmacy, and secondly, if there was a need, then which application out of the 3 to approve.
One of the 3 applications was ruled out as it offered no benefits over the other 2 and this left our client and one other application. We found out before the hearing that the competing Applicant was marketing their business for sale and we believed that this would create significant doubt as to whether, if granted, they would ever in fact open a new pharmacy as they could not guarantee how a new owner would wish to proceed. The panel agreed with this and granted the application from our client and refused the competing application.
The other interesting part of this case was that we advised our client that they would be better off representing themselves at this hearing instead of having Rushport represent them even though we had worked with them throughout the entire application process up to this point. We recommended this approach because the case for a new pharmacy was very strong and it would really come down to which of the Applicants the Panel preferred. We felt it was important for our client to present theit own case and let the Panel see the passion that they had for opening this pharmacy and this seems to have had a positive effect.