Southsea Debenhams: Portsmouth City Council threatens to use compulsory purchase order to kickstart redevelopment work

Planning permission to redevelop the site was given two years ago but has been held up by the owner’s refusal to sign off on work starting, despite agreement from the other organisations involved.

Council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson, whose cabinet will consider issuing the order when it meets on Tuesday (March 7), said he hoped the intervention would spur progress on the project.

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The department store closed in January 2020 with a planning application from National Regional Property Group to redevelop the site into 134 homes above a ground-floor GP practice and dental surgery approved a year later. A business case has also been approved for the relocation of Trafalgar Medical Group Practice to the new centre.

However, progress has since stalled with the building owner, who has not been named, refusing to sign off a deal allowing work to start.

Cllr Vernon-Jackson said: ‘We’ve completely lost patience now, everything was signed and agreed in 2021 – except for their signature. So it’s just sat there empty.

‘It’s an important regeneration site for Southsea with GP and pharmacy provision and it’s important we do everything we can to bring it forward.

‘In an ideal world, just the threat of a compulsory purchase will get the owner on board but we are prepared to follow it all the way through.’

The cabinet report says the order would be an ‘opportunity to bring this key site back into active use to enable and progress the regeneration of this important district hub in the city’.

Discussion at the meeting is due to be held in private due to concerns around the publication of information that is ‘commercially, legally or personally sensitive’.

St Jude ward councillor Judith Smyth hopes the move would lead to progress.

‘This is one of the most frequent things that’s raised by people living in St Jude and I share their concerns about these delays but it’s something that’s been out of the council’s hands,’ she said. ‘I’m really keen we do anything we can to expedite things. It’s a really significant development.’

National Regional Property Group refused to comment on the council’s proposal.