B&Q, Interchange Park, Bedford

Bedford was the largest town in the UK without a B&Q store and the company had been searching for a site for a long time. This site was ideal as it adjoined an existing retail park. The site was, however, allocated for employment use and had an extant planning permission for employment development. SP&D successfully demonstrated that there was in fact a surplus of employment land by unpicking how the Council’s employment land target was calculated to show that need for B2/B8 floorspace had been overestimated and that there was more supply than had been anticipated.

We made the case that by improving Bedford’s retail offer as a whole the proposal would help retain more expenditure locally and thus increase the vitality and viability of the Town Centre. As a visible sign of confidence in the town it would increase the prospects of further investment in Town Centre and would not prejudice a longstanding Council ambition to redevelop another location on the edge of the Town Centre.