Tesco Stores Limited (Appellant) v Dundee City Council (Respondent) (Scotland)

In Tesco Stores Limited (Appellant) v Dundee City Council (Respondent), the Supreme Court considered whether Dundee City Council had acted unlawfully when deciding to grant planning permission for a superstore development. Tesco Stores Limited, the appellant, argued that the council had misconstrued a policy in the development plan, which concerned the sequential approach to site selection for new retail developments. According to Tesco, the council had misunderstood the requirement that no suitable site should be available, in the first instance, within and thereafter on the edge of city, town or district centres, as meaning that the site must be suitable for the development proposed by the applicant, rather than suitable for meeting identified deficiencies in retail provision in the area. The court held that the council had not acted unlawfully in its interpretation of the policy and that the meaning of "suitable" in the policy was a matter to be determined objectively in accordance with the language used, read in its proper context. The court also held that the council had properly considered the proposed development against the criteria in the development plan and that there was no real possibility that their determination might otherwise have been different. The appeal was dismissed.