Macclesfield café owners accuse Cheshire East of going back on deal

The owners of a building on Churchill Way car park – due to be sold as part of the town-centre redevelopment plan – have criticised the council for allegedly going back on their deal.

The buildings’ sale was agreed between the owners and Cheshire East Council in March.

The BBC reported that owners Elizabet Frutos and Waqar Abbassi say they have been “left in limbo” after the council later said the price they had agreed was too high.

The council has now stated that the case was “under review”.

Elizabet Frutos and Waqar Abbassi

Mrs Frutos and Mr Abbassi ran Treats café, on Great King Street and sub-let the remaining two units to tenants.

The deal would have seen Cheshire East Council buying the building to enable property developer Wilson Bowden to make headway on the now scrapped Silk Street scheme.

On 26 March, the council agreed a price with Mrs Frutos and Mr Abbassi as well as a level of compensation for the units’ occupiers.

As part of the deal, both parties committed to exchange sale contracts within 30 days – at which point the agreement would have become legally binding.

Mrs Frutos and Mr Abbassi said they then closed their cafe and gave four weeks’ notice to their tenants.

Mr Abbassi added: “We were planning our future, we were planning our child’s future . . . a family has hundreds of plans linked to this kind of situation.”

Several weeks after the deal, Cheshire East Council has written to them to say that a surveyor had judged that the agreed price and level of compensation was too high because “the property appears to have been vacant for a long time.”

But Ms Frutos and Mr Abbassi said they have invoices and CCTV footage that prove the units had only been empty for a few weeks, and this was only because of the council’s stipulation within their agreement.

Recently alternative regeneration plans were unveiled for Churchill Way car park – on which Ms Frutos’ and Mr Abbassi’s building is located – and the land is now being advertised to developers.

A Cheshire East Council spokesperson said: “The council is sympathetic to individuals who have been directly affected by the change in circumstances, but we have to ensure value for money when spending public funds.”

They added it would “be inappropriate to comment any further” as the case was being reviewed.

Ms Frutos told the BBC she hasn’t been given a revised offer from the council and no longer has an income because their cafe’s fixtures and fittings have been sold and their tenants have left.

She said: “Now I feel like I just don’t know where I’m standing. We don’t know what to do”.