What’s in store for Kingsway?
RETAIL PARK LOOKING DESOLATE AFTER CLOSURES AND COVID
LONG queues of traffic heading for Derby’s Kingsway Retail Park were once a common sight – but now there is hardly a car to be seen in the car park.
After a year in which traditional retail has been hit hard by Covid, the shopping area has become eerily quiet.
And there are two big holes where major retailers Halfords and Argos have moved out, posing a question over its viability.
ONE of Derby’s biggest retail outlets has been left looking desolate after a year in which traditional shops have suffered greatly due to several extended lockdowns.
Kingsway Retail Park, close to the A38 on the western side of Derby, has held a dominant spot in the city for more than 30 years – on what was once the Rowditch Landfill.
It is home to some of the UK’s largest retail names, occupying sizeable units and inviting thousands of shoppers on a regular basis, though not without infamous traffic issues.
However, its future viability may be in question with the loss of two major store-holders – Argos and Halfords, leaving sizeable holes in the retail park.
Investment firm Orchard Street, which owns the site, was approached for comment but no one was available to give a statement.
The two units which had been home to the two large stores now lie vacant after a more than challenging year in retail which saw firms small and large reconsider their brick and mortar assets in favour of expanding online.
The significant former Argos unit has now moved into a small space within Sainsbury’s, also on the retail park.
Sainsbury’s, which bought Argos in 2016, announced in November that it was closing all of 420 standalone Argos stores and opening 150 outlets within its supermarkets.
Meanwhile, signs on the former large two-floor Halfords unit point customers to their store at Wyvern Retail Park to the east of the city.
Halfords announced in July last year that it was closing 60 stores and garages, withdrawing from one in 10 of its sites.
Kingsway Retail Park still houses Sainsbury’s, Homebase, Pets at Home, TK Maxx, PC World, Hobbycraft, Smyths Toys, Boots, Harveys Furniture, Bensons for Beds, Poundland and Marks & Spencer.
Orchard Street bought Kingsway Retail Park for £57.3 million in 2016 claiming it had an “exceptionally strong trading performance in addition to resilient occupier demand”.
The firm has submitted a planning application to Derby City Council looking to make changes to the retail park. It hopes these will make it easier to re-let the vacant buildings on site, says a document written by Burnett Planning, submitted on behalf of the owners.
This includes allowing food and drink to be sold from Unit 2, currently occupied by Pets at Home.
The report says the owners are in discussions with Pets at Home to move to Unit 10 – the former Halfords.
It says the changes: “Will also support the sustainable planning objective of ensuring that existing units at Kingsway Retail Park are actively used.
“Kingsway Retail Park is an important established shopping destination in the city. Maintaining occupancy of the existing retail units at the retail park is consistent with sustainable development objectives.”