Work on retail park nearing completion

MANY of the buildings, including seven shops, are almost complete in a retail centre being built in Burbage.

The walls and curved roofs are largely in place for the three buildings that will make up the 1.36-acre complex off Rugby Road near the railway bridge, with works due to finish in November.

Heart of England Co-operative Society will be managing the site as it invests £4.5 million in the enterprise, which will include one of its convenience stores and a Greggs.

Co-op bosses plan to have the shop open by January 2020, with other groups moving in to include Topps Tiles, Toolstation, The Salvation Army and Johnsons cleaners, which formerly had a base there.

Tanning group Consol will also be creating a salon there next to Greggs.

Ali Kurji, chief executive of the society, hopes the complex will attract customers driving home from work and people who live nearby.

He said: “We will get a lot of footfall from the houses across the road and people going back in the evening.

“There’s a reasonable amount of parking.

“It’s a question of you pop in and get what you want, pick it up and go home. You don’t have to spend a lot of time in a convenience store.”

The centre will include 53 parking spaces, with vehicles accessing the site from an entrance on a roundabout on Rugby Road, opposite the Hansom Cab pub. Heart of England formerly ran the Co-op store in Hinckley town centre at the top of Castle Street, a department store with homeware and electrical items, which closed in January 2016.

Mr Kurji said: “It was a very painful decision for me and our directors to exit from that business model.

“The whole retail landscape has changed.

“There’s so much online, with eBay and Amazon.

“It was something I did not wish to do. I could not carry on in non-food. I always had on my mind if things worked out to come back into Hinckley.

“I wanted some kind of presence in Hinckley in the food business.

“I’m pleased we have come back.” He said the group is funding the project entirely from its own resources, with a record level of investment.

Margins are coming under increasing pressure in the food market and Mr Kurji anticipates future competition from discount giants such as Aldi and Lidl.

He said: “My worry is, at the moment, Aldi and Lidl both operate in large stores, but already they are going into local stores.

“They will come in our region. “Aldi’s head office is in Atherstone. They must be looking to.”

Aldi and Lidl both opened a new store in Hinckley in August this year, and Aldi has another superstore on the A5 outside of the town.

The seven units will be spread across three buildings with dedicated parking, bin stores, a cash machine and cycle shelters.