By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
BUNNINGS has snapped up an opportunity for a hardware store at Leopold after the troubled Masters chain abandoned it in 2013.
A City Hall spokesperson confirmed council had received an application for an expansion of Gateway Plaza Shopping Centre to include a large format hardware store.
A sign advertising the planning permit application has appeared on land beside the existing shopping centre.
The Independent reported in February 2013 that Leopold lost a proposed Masters hardware store after a planning wrangle.
Developer Lascorp had sought approval to extend Gateway Plaza Shopping Centre west along Bellarine Hwy as part of an 35,000-square-metre expansion.
But council adopted a Leopold structure plan maintaining the town’s western boundary, which blocked the westerly extension.
An independent planning panel backed council on the boundaries in the structure plan.
The planning panel heard that Lascorp “made it very clear to the panel that it wishes to develop a stand-alone bulky goods outlet on its land west of Clifton Ave”.
“In the event that this option was not supported, Masters would not develop anywhere in the centre, which would be to the loss of both Leopold and the Bellarine Peninsula.”
The panel backed council position that the shopping centre extension should be along Melaluka Rd instead.
Masters also won a permit for a large-format hardware store in Bacchus Marsh Rd, Corio, but has yet to carry out any work on the site.
Woolworths and American hardware giant Lowe’s own Masters, while Bunnings is a stablemate of Coles in the Wesfarmers group.
The home-improvement rivals have been conducting a price war and advertising blitz as Masters attempts to turn around its losses and win market share and from the established Bunnings.
The former owners of major Mitre 10 stores in Geelong, Keith and Barry Fagg, used landholdings to stymie development of other large-formate hardware store in the region for years. The Faggs lodged objections against planning permit applications from both Bunnings and Masters.
