New job in store as Weldon joins Spar’s global guild

BWG’S marketing and communications director, Suzanne Weldon, has been appointed as BWG’s Spar Ireland representative on the International Spar Guild, which is a council of Spar retailers and wholesalers from around the world.

Spar International describes itself as the world’s largest food retail voluntary chain, with over 12,700 stores worldwide and global retail sales of over €35bn in 2017.

The BWG Group has been the operator of the Spar brand in Ireland since 1963. The Irish business is owned by Leo Crawford, John Clohisey, John O’Donnell and The Spar Group, a South African company which invested in BWG in 2014. At the time the Irish business was in financial difficulty.

The three Irish men own around 20pc of the business and are due to exit with a substantial windfall over the next few years.

The pace of suburban growth into Leinster is again picking up. A new site on the market may be seen by developers as an opportunity to get in on the act.

Maynooth-based Coonan Property is offering for sale by tender a “ready to go” development site of 22.7 acres — guiding at €6.5m — with full planning permission for 187 units north of Kildare town, close to the town’s train station and the M7.

How long it takes for homes to start appearing on the site will say much about the ability of the housebuilding sector to fill the yawning supply gap.