St John’s Retail Park, Bedford

With traditional bulky goods retailers facing difficulties and the disappearance or downsizing of a number of high profile shops landlords have had to attract new tenants, which often involves relaxing restrictive conditions on existing planning permissions. We explained the dynamic nature of the retail sector to the Council and how out of centre, and town centre, retailing was changing. We undertook a detailed, fine grain analysis of town centre stores that demonstrated there would be no overlap with existing retailers and therefore no adverse impact on the town centre's vitality and viability.

SP&D gained permission for one of the first Costa Coffee drive thru stores in the country. Retail Parks have long had fast food outlets but cafés and coffee shops are a newer concept. We successfully demonstrated that there would be no material adverse impact on surrounding centres from the drive thru itself or from the increased attractiveness of the Retail Park as a whole. We also secured consents to refresh the retail environment, including new signage, footpaths and additional mezzanine floorspace. This paved the way for the sale of the Retail Park which released capital to allow the owner to pursue other development opportunities.