Aldergate Properties Ltd v Mansfield District Council & Anor [2016] EWHC 1670 (Admin)
Aldergate is one of the key English cases on the town-centre sequential test. It confirms that the test is generally about the type of retail development proposed, not the identity or competitive preferences of a particular retailer. Mansfield could not exclude its town centre from the sequential search simply because Aldi considered another store there commercially unattractive alongside its own nearby outlets.
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- Neutral citation
- [2016] EWHC 1670 (Admin)
- Court
- High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Planning Court
- Judgment date
- 8th July 2016
- Judge
- Mr Justice Ouseley
- Case number
- CO/6256/2015
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What Aldergate decided
Mansfield District Council granted permission for a 1,925 square metre Aldi food store at Sherwood Oaks Business Park, about three and a half miles from Mansfield town centre.
Aldergate was associated with the owner of a town-centre site at Belvedere Street, also known as Stockwell Gate South, which had permission for a mixed development including substantial retail floorspace.
The council agreed in advance that the sequential assessment did not need to search Mansfield town centre. Its reasoning was that Aldi already had one nearby store and permission for another, so a further Aldi store in the town centre would not make commercial sense for that particular operator.
Mr Justice Ouseley held that approach unlawful and quashed the permission.
The sequential test is not tailored to one retailer’s corporate preferences
The court held that suitability and availability generally refer to the broad type of development proposed, including matters such as approximate size, type and range of goods.
The sequential search should not change from one applicant to another simply because of the identity, trading style or competitive preferences of the intended operator.
If it did, a retailer with several existing stores could potentially obtain an easier route to an out-of-centre site than a competitor proposing essentially the same development. The judge said that would make nonsense of the sequential approach.
Aldi’s wish not to compete with itself was not a site constraint
Mansfield had treated town-centre sites as unsuitable because another Aldi store would compete with Aldi’s own nearby outlets.
That was a commercial preference belonging to the operator, not a physical, planning or land-availability constraint affecting the broad type of food store for which permission was sought.
National policy seeks to steer main town-centre uses towards town centres. The identity of the operator cannot generally be used to remove the town centre from the exercise before the search has properly begun.
Availability also has to be considered at site level
Ouseley J also discussed availability. He gave the example of a town-centre retail site already controlled by one retailer for its own future use.
The fact that the owner will not make the site available to a competing retailer does not, by itself, mean the site must be ignored. The sequential test is not simply asking whether the particular applicant can obtain the site. It is concerned with whether the site is available for the relevant type of development.
This passage became important in later litigation, particularly the Stockport Tesco cases. The Court of Appeal has since made clear that Aldergate does not mean a site remains available forever once it has genuinely been committed to another retail development and is effectively off the market.
Flexibility still matters
Aldergate does not require a planning authority to invent a completely different proposal or force a retailer into a commercially unrealistic scheme.
The NPPF required flexibility on format and scale. The judge accepted the real-world approach identified in earlier cases. But flexibility is very different from allowing one operator’s existing store network or desire to avoid self-competition to dictate which centres or sites are assessed.
The personal Aldi condition did not cure the problem
Because the sequential exercise had been tailored to Aldi, officers proposed a condition intended to make the permission personal to Aldi.
The judge considered that the condition logically followed from the flawed sequential approach rather than curing it. He also noted the strong national guidance against personal conditions except in unusual circumstances and found that this guidance had not been put before the committee.
Planning permission normally runs with the land. A proposal which is only acceptable because the sequential test has been constructed around one operator should ring alarm bells rather than be rescued by a personal occupancy condition.
Retail impact and the development plan also mattered
The court found further errors. The council had not properly addressed development plan criteria dealing with the vitality and viability of nearby centres and prejudice to future investment in Mansfield town centre.
The fact that the proposal fell below the NPPF default threshold for a formal retail impact assessment did not make those underlying planning considerations irrelevant.
Where the development plan or the facts make town-centre impact material, the authority still has to address it even if national policy does not require a full formal impact assessment.
How Aldergate fits with Warners Retail
The Court of Appeal had handed down Warners Retail only two weeks earlier. Ouseley J delayed judgment so that he could consider it and concluded that Warners did not alter his decision.
The cases are compatible. Warners recognises the need for real-world flexibility and the relevance of the development actually proposed. Aldergate deals with the different problem of an entire sequential search being altered by one retailer’s corporate preferences.
Tesco v Stockport later clarified genuine unavailability
In Tesco v Stockport [2025] EWCA Civ 610, the Court of Appeal considered sites which had genuinely been committed to other food retailers through advanced legal arrangements.
That was materially different from Aldergate. The Stockport sites were not rejected because Lidl personally could not or did not want to use them. They had effectively been taken up and were no longer realistic alternatives for any additional operator.
Read the full Aldergate judgment
The approved Planning Court judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Related Planning Geek guidance
Our current guide explains the Town Centre Sequential Test for main town centre uses and distinguishes it from the separate flood-risk Sequential Test.
Aldergate Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026