First work to start at retail park

2024-03-02 - BY GRAHAM BROWN

DISCOUNT giant Home Bargains is about to begin its long-awaited £16 million Arbroath retail park development.

The Liverpool-based firm has confirmed the first phase of work at the Elliot site is due to start this month.

It comes after Angus councillors approved a major change to the layout of the former Presentation Products factory site.

A 30,000 sq ft Home Bargains store and 10,000 sq ft garden centre will anchor the development.

Last month the retailer’s parent company T J Morris got the go-ahead to reshape the remaining units.

It will now feature a builder’s merchant and yard, with one other 12,500 sq ft unit.

The scheme includes a drive-thru and cafe at the entrance to the site, and around 400 parking spaces.

Home Bargains has yet to confirm other names which will be coming to the retail park.

There will be special protection for some of the site’s smallest residents when machinery moves in.

Rare ringed plovers were reported there when Home Bargains’ original plans for the land were approved in 2022.

The small wader usually nests on beaches.

But it now regularly breeds in sand and gravel pits and former industrial sites.

It is a red-listed species and highly sensitive to disturbance during the March to August nesting season.

If plovers are found on the Elliot site an expert ornithologist will carry out a site survey within 48 hours.

It could lead to a protection buffer zone around the groundnesting birds.

And that would remain in place until the chicks have fledged.

Home Bargains has also told locals it plans a pedestrian link to the adjacent Asda supermarket and Westway retail park.

Once complete, the two developments will adjoin each other on Dundee Road.

The new retail park will take separate access from the A92.

A plea for a link road between the two sites was made in 2021 when the Home Bargains scheme emerged.

At the latest planning meeting, Carnoustie councillor David Cheape said it would be a “missed opportunity” if a path was not put in.

Home Bargains’ planning agent said: “We’re intending to show a pedestrian link to the site next door.

“We won’t have anything in terms of fencing in place and will take a path right up to the boundary.

“We can’t do anything about what Asda do on their side of the boundary, that’s outwith our control.”