Turf war flares up again

Sep 16 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

AUCHTERARDER residents looking forward to the December 1 opening date of the town’s second pharmacy should not hold their breaths.

Goliath UK retail chain Lloyds Pharmacy has refused to accept the umpire’s decision, initiating legal action propelling the new pharmacy into limbo.

Yesterday, Lloyds area manager Fiona Slavin confirmed her company had raised a petition for a judicial review to challenge the national appeal panel’s decision.

In early August, rival Allan Gordon, managing director of Davidsons Chemist, was cautiously jubilant after winning – with substantial community support – a 12-year turf war with Lloyds to open a second pharmacy in the Lang Toon.

A national appeal panel had just rejected the 1600-UK-chain-Lloyds’ appeal to overrule a decision taken by NHS Tayside’s pharmacy practices committee (PCC) in April to green light the new premises.

His previous bid to open a new pharmacy competing with Lloyds was approved last December but spiked after the panel upheld an appeal by Lloyds, which deemed it “neither necessary nor desirable”.

Judicial

Last month he told the PA that although he didn’t want to sound pessimistic, it might not be the final nail in the coffin as Lloyds could still go down the judicial route.

“I’ll not believe we’ve won until I actually open the door of the new shop,” he said.

This week his fears were substantiated, with a court date set for January 13, effectively stalling the December opening of Davidsons’ venture at 54-56 High Street, along with up to 10 new jobs.

Ms Slavin said the first hearing would take place at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

“We successfully appealed against the contract in May last year and having taken legal advice, we believe the National Appeal Panel's recent decision was unlawful and should be reversed,” she said.

She said Lloyds had tweaked its service and the pharmacy during the past year, with improvements including extended opening hours, product range, shop layout and staffing levels.

“We understand that customers may like to have a choice of pharmacy, however we don’t believe that the size of the community can sustain two pharmacies in the town,” she said.

“Our pharmacy team is committed and works hard to engage the local community and provide customers with the best possible service.

“We will continue to listen to customers to make service improvements and are looking at ways we can further enhance the pharmacy environment.”

Mr Gordon meanwhile, described the pending court action as “irritating”.

“Justice will take its course, but I’d say it’s highly unlikely that the PPC and a national appeal panel would have got it wrong,” he said.

He said having viewed the legal papers, he deemed the action purely as a delaying tactic, describing Lloyds claims of an unlawful decision as “thin”.

“This will be a preliminary hearing and according to my legal advice, this could drag on until next summer,” he said.

“So I can understand why they’re doing this as every month we don’t open (in Auchterarder), it’s another month they can retain the profit and offset the legal costs, which could be up to £40,000 if they lose, so it’s a good business decision.”

He said his understanding was that national appeal panel experts had already responded to Lloyds initial request.

“And they said, ‘no, we made the right decision’,” he said.

“So it is irritating but I have enough experience in business to know these things happen.”