Taunton is finding life with out-of-town schemes can be sweet. By Elaine Cavanagh
Across the country, traditional town centres are doing battle, David and Goliath style, against giant out-of-town developments. But events in Taunton, Somerset’s county town, prove there does not have to be confrontation.
A report by Hillier Parker and Colin Buchanan has officially declared that Taunton Riverside – its only out-of-town offer – has not adversely affected the health of the town centre.
Encouraged by the findings, planners at Taunton Deane borough council gave the green light for a further 5,110m2 (55,000 sq ft) of non-food retail space – as the third and final phase of the development, at junction 25 of the M5.
Wilson Connolly and Barwood Developments last month concluded a funding agreement with National Mutual Life Assurance Society and prelet the 1.8ha (4.5acre) site to DIY giant B&Q.
Nick Seary, of Bristol-based joint letting agent King Sturge, says: “B&Q is good news for the town. It didn’t have a presence in the area and it was keen to get in there. The deal not only brings a new name to the town, it also recognises the strength of Taunton Riverside.”
He puts its “phenomenal success” down to a combination of factors, including a location near to both the town centre and the motorway.
B&Q, set to open before the year’s end, joins a retail line-up that includes a Sainsbury’s anchor, Homebase, Currys, Office World, Mothercare World and Halfords. The development also has an office village and a large leisure element comprising a five-screen Odeon cinema, 24-lane Hollywood Bowl, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Fatty Arbuckles and The Hankridge Arms, a pub conversion of a 17th-century farm house by brewers Hall & Woodhouse.
Hotels are much in vogue for Taunton. A Granada Travel Lodge opened two months ago at Taunton Riverside. And terms have recently been agreed for Creech Castle, a prominent landmark building on the A38 at Bathpool, near Taunton. Part of the building is Grade II listed and Richard Rees of FPDSavills in Bath says that the sale is close to the £700,000 asking price.
The building houses a nightclub, pub and hotel. The new owners will start work on modernising the hotel element this autumn.
Meanwhile, construction work on a 92-bed Holiday Inn is nearing completion on phase one of Blackbrook Business Park, by junction 25 of the M5. The site plus an adjoining plot, totalling 1.2ha (3 acres), was purchased by Stannifer Hotels, which is also building a Bass-owned Harvester.
Summerfield Development’s 7.3ha (18 acre) scheme is also occupied by health cover company Western Provident, local solicitor Clarke Willmott Clarke, Barclays, and a NatWest call centre.
Ben Mosley of Alder King – joint agent with King Sturge – says that NatWest is paying a rent of £143 per m2 (£13.25 per sq ft). The figure reflects a trend for higher office rents in motorway locations compared with the town centre.
Good-quality town-centre accommodation achieves £97 per m2 (£9 per sq ft) and secondhand office space £75-£81 per m2 (£7-£7.50 per sq ft).
Summerfield is starting work on a 5.3ha (13 acre) second phase and Mosley says there are hopes that it will attract a large occupier requiring up to 3,716m2 (40,000 sq ft).
But large space demands in the town centre are rare, he says. Alder King has just been appointed by BT to dispose of properties in the South West and South Wales region.
“We’ll be selling Telephone House in Taunton, which will be a very high-profile disposal,” says Mosley. “It’s 7,432m2 (80,000 sq ft) but is likely to becomemulti-tenanted. There are plenty of demands for 1,858m2 (20,000 sq ft), but not for more than that amount of space. Larger requirements prefer a motorway location.”
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Ways and means to accommodate housing
Adding to the pressure on Somerset’s land use is the government’s demand for extra housing.
Chris Dawson of Cluttons Daniel Smith explains: “Extra housing development is concentrated in Mendip and south Somerset.”
In south Somerset, one housing development opportunity already being marketed is a 1.4ha (3.4 acre) brownfield site at Milborne Port, near Sherborne.
Bob Chapman, of King Sturge, which is selling the freehold of this former tannery site, says: “The government is keen to see greater use made of brownfield sites for residential development and this one meets those criteria.”
Meanwhile, Taunton is seeking ways to accommodate its housing requirements – boosted from 10,000 to 12,900 to the year 2011.
Says Alder King’s Ben Mosley: “That’s quite a big-percentage increase and some industrial sites are being lost.” He cites Taunton Trading Estate and the British Rail concrete works as examples. However, Bruton Knowles’ David Foot stresses that the St Modwen-owned 28.3ha (70 acre) Taunton Trading Estate at Norton Fitzwarren will retain a zoned industrial area designed to accommodate small-space users.
Refurbishment could assist
“It’s an ex-MOD site comprising enormous warehouses – 7,432m2 (80,000 sq ft) plus – which, without major refurbishment, is coming to the end of its useful life.”
Foot says that there is not a demand for such large units, but that the site remains popular with smaller occupiers.
“St Modwen’s approach has been sympathetic to the existing tenants,” he says.
Elsewhere in Taunton, East Reach Nurses Home and the former Theaks factory are also to be converted into flats and houses, boosting the town centre’s residential population.
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Reatil rivalry boosts town-centre schemes
Taunton suffers, like so many towns, from traffic congestion and limited parking at many office buildings. But a boost to the town’s grocery retail offer could help alleviate traffic problems.
Tesco has applied to build a 4,181m2 (45,000 sq ft) superstore on the Tangier site, on the Wellington side of Taunton. It is being linked to a planning contribution that will see a partial inner ring road come to fruition.
Ben Mosley of Alder King says that the road will relieve Bridge Street, which carries traffic via a river bridge into the town’s prime pitch on North Street, Fore Street and East Street. Planners are due to consider the application in September.
The town’s prime retail centre has seen considerable activity, triggered by Marks & Spencer’s high-profile relocation into The County Hotel scheme in East Street. The scheme, built by Lombard Street Developments and recently sold as an investment to Equitable Life, also houses Waterstone’s, Virgin and hairdresser Toni & Guy.
M&S’s move has not only caused a shift in the town’s prime in favour of East Street but also boosted rental levels. According to Rob Williams of Healey & Baker, advisors to M&S, zone A rents on East Street last year were £484-£538 per m2 (£45-£50 per sq ft). A recent letting to MVC at 15 East Street, however, showed the area now commanding zone A rents of £700-£753 per m2 (£65-£70 per sq ft). “M&S has really pulled the pitch round and generally the market is rising,” he says.
Robert Larkman of Larkman Edgcumbe agrees: “As well as M&S, Virgin and Waterstone’s have really upped the ante in rental terms. Back in 1989, Taunton saw £1,076 per m2 (£100 per sq ft) and now it is coming back up to that level again.”
M&S’s relocation vacated two stores – in Fore Street and Standard Life’s Old Market Square. Chartwell Land bought the Fore Street unit freehold, letting the premises to Woolworths – marking the store’s return to the town after 10 years’ absence.
Relocation boosters
TK Maxx, meanwhile, has expressed an interest in the unit at Old Market Square.
Argos has also relocated from a 743m2 (8,000 sq ft) unit – now under offer to a major pub operator – to 2,490m2 (26,800 sq ft) in East Street, a unit previously occupied by Fads, Allied Carpets and Bitz Cards, at £230,000 pa.
Still in East Street, Sports Soccer paid more than £1.5m to a local pension fund for the freehold interest on a unit previously occupied by Harveys, and took a surrender on the lease.
The opening of The Mall at Bristol has worried many doing business in Somerset’s towns. But, says David Foot of Bruton Knowles, a programme of town-centre enhancements and the appointment of a town-centre manager, combined with the M&S move, have bolstered Taunton’s confidence.
Elsewhere in Somerset, MEPC’s Clarks Village goes from strength to strength with latest sales figures showing a 34% increase in business. It now has hopes for a fourth phase under a local planning strategy that allows for extra retail space.
Weston Super Mare, in the north of the county, however, is more vulnerable to lost trade, being just 25 minutes’ drive-time from the mega mall.
But the town is determined not to cave-in to competition and has recently published proposals for the 21st century. Graham Quick of North Somerset council says that it particularly addresses the need to upgrade the town-centre environment and solve traffic problems.
“We would have been doing this anyway, but The Mall has definitely focused everybody’s attention,” he says. “We are a tourist centre so, at the moment, the market is still strong. But the testing time for our retailers will come at Christmas.”
Elsewhere in the county, Mendip district council has also been addressing its future with in-depth research into business property requirements. The research highlights concern about the supply of development land – no more than 12.1ha (30 acres), and half of that concentrated in Shepton Mallet, one of the district’s four key towns.
Chris Dawson of Cluttons Daniel Smith, one of the agents involved in the research, says that the district local plan attempts to address the problem with an allocation of 36.5ha (90 acres), including 16.9ha (42 acres) at Frome and 6.5ha (16 acres) at Gate Lane in Wells.
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Somerset
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Taunton is finding life with out-of-town schemes can be sweet. By Elaine Cavanagh
Across the country, traditional town centres are doing battle, David and Goliath style, against giant out-of-town developments. But events in Taunton, Somerset’s county town, prove there does not have to be confrontation.
A report by Hillier Parker and Colin Buchanan has officially declared that Taunton Riverside – its only out-of-town offer – has not adversely affected the health of the town centre.
Encouraged by the findings, planners at Taunton Deane borough council gave the green light for a further 5,110m2 (55,000 sq ft) of non-food retail space – as the third and final phase of the development, at junction 25 of the M5.
Wilson Connolly and Barwood Developments last month concluded a funding agreement with National Mutual Life Assurance Society and prelet the 1.8ha (4.5acre) site to DIY giant B&Q.
Nick Seary, of Bristol-based joint letting agent King Sturge, says: “B&Q is good news for the town. It didn’t have a presence in the area and it was keen to get in there. The deal not only brings a new name to the town, it also recognises the strength of Taunton Riverside.”
He puts its “phenomenal success” down to a combination of factors, including a location near to both the town centre and the motorway.
B&Q, set to open before the year’s end, joins a retail line-up that includes a Sainsbury’s anchor, Homebase, Currys, Office World, Mothercare World and Halfords. The development also has an office village and a large leisure element comprising a five-screen Odeon cinema, 24-lane Hollywood Bowl, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Fatty Arbuckles and The Hankridge Arms, a pub conversion of a 17th-century farm house by brewers Hall & Woodhouse.
Hotels are much in vogue for Taunton. A Granada Travel Lodge opened two months ago at Taunton Riverside. And terms have recently been agreed for Creech Castle, a prominent landmark building on the A38 at Bathpool, near Taunton. Part of the building is Grade II listed and Richard Rees of FPDSavills in Bath says that the sale is close to the £700,000 asking price.
The building houses a nightclub, pub and hotel. The new owners will start work on modernising the hotel element this autumn.
Meanwhile, construction work on a 92-bed Holiday Inn is nearing completion on phase one of Blackbrook Business Park, by junction 25 of the M5. The site plus an adjoining plot, totalling 1.2ha (3 acres), was purchased by Stannifer Hotels, which is also building a Bass-owned Harvester.
Summerfield Development’s 7.3ha (18 acre) scheme is also occupied by health cover company Western Provident, local solicitor Clarke Willmott Clarke, Barclays, and a NatWest call centre.
Ben Mosley of Alder King – joint agent with King Sturge – says that NatWest is paying a rent of £143 per m2 (£13.25 per sq ft). The figure reflects a trend for higher office rents in motorway locations compared with the town centre.
Good-quality town-centre accommodation achieves £97 per m2 (£9 per sq ft) and secondhand office space £75-£81 per m2 (£7-£7.50 per sq ft).
Summerfield is starting work on a 5.3ha (13 acre) second phase and Mosley says there are hopes that it will attract a large occupier requiring up to 3,716m2 (40,000 sq ft).
But large space demands in the town centre are rare, he says. Alder King has just been appointed by BT to dispose of properties in the South West and South Wales region.
“We’ll be selling Telephone House in Taunton, which will be a very high-profile disposal,” says Mosley. “It’s 7,432m2 (80,000 sq ft) but is likely to becomemulti-tenanted. There are plenty of demands for 1,858m2 (20,000 sq ft), but not for more than that amount of space. Larger requirements prefer a motorway location.”
<TABLE.
Ways and means to accommodate housing
Adding to the pressure on Somerset’s land use is the government’s demand for extra housing.
Chris Dawson of Cluttons Daniel Smith explains: “Extra housing development is concentrated in Mendip and south Somerset.”
In south Somerset, one housing development opportunity already being marketed is a 1.4ha (3.4 acre) brownfield site at Milborne Port, near Sherborne.
Bob Chapman, of King Sturge, which is selling the freehold of this former tannery site, says: “The government is keen to see greater use made of brownfield sites for residential development and this one meets those criteria.”
Meanwhile, Taunton is seeking ways to accommodate its housing requirements – boosted from 10,000 to 12,900 to the year 2011.
Says Alder King’s Ben Mosley: “That’s quite a big-percentage increase and some industrial sites are being lost.” He cites Taunton Trading Estate and the British Rail concrete works as examples. However, Bruton Knowles’ David Foot stresses that the St Modwen-owned 28.3ha (70 acre) Taunton Trading Estate at Norton Fitzwarren will retain a zoned industrial area designed to accommodate small-space users.
Refurbishment could assist
“It’s an ex-MOD site comprising enormous warehouses – 7,432m2 (80,000 sq ft) plus – which, without major refurbishment, is coming to the end of its useful life.”
Foot says that there is not a demand for such large units, but that the site remains popular with smaller occupiers.
“St Modwen’s approach has been sympathetic to the existing tenants,” he says.
Elsewhere in Taunton, East Reach Nurses Home and the former Theaks factory are also to be converted into flats and houses, boosting the town centre’s residential population.
Reatil rivalry boosts town-centre schemes
Taunton suffers, like so many towns, from traffic congestion and limited parking at many office buildings. But a boost to the town’s grocery retail offer could help alleviate traffic problems.
Tesco has applied to build a 4,181m2 (45,000 sq ft) superstore on the Tangier site, on the Wellington side of Taunton. It is being linked to a planning contribution that will see a partial inner ring road come to fruition.
Ben Mosley of Alder King says that the road will relieve Bridge Street, which carries traffic via a river bridge into the town’s prime pitch on North Street, Fore Street and East Street. Planners are due to consider the application in September.
The town’s prime retail centre has seen considerable activity, triggered by Marks & Spencer’s high-profile relocation into The County Hotel scheme in East Street. The scheme, built by Lombard Street Developments and recently sold as an investment to Equitable Life, also houses Waterstone’s, Virgin and hairdresser Toni & Guy.
M&S’s move has not only caused a shift in the town’s prime in favour of East Street but also boosted rental levels. According to Rob Williams of Healey & Baker, advisors to M&S, zone A rents on East Street last year were £484-£538 per m2 (£45-£50 per sq ft). A recent letting to MVC at 15 East Street, however, showed the area now commanding zone A rents of £700-£753 per m2 (£65-£70 per sq ft). “M&S has really pulled the pitch round and generally the market is rising,” he says.
Robert Larkman of Larkman Edgcumbe agrees: “As well as M&S, Virgin and Waterstone’s have really upped the ante in rental terms. Back in 1989, Taunton saw £1,076 per m2 (£100 per sq ft) and now it is coming back up to that level again.”
M&S’s relocation vacated two stores – in Fore Street and Standard Life’s Old Market Square. Chartwell Land bought the Fore Street unit freehold, letting the premises to Woolworths – marking the store’s return to the town after 10 years’ absence.
Relocation boosters
TK Maxx, meanwhile, has expressed an interest in the unit at Old Market Square.
Argos has also relocated from a 743m2 (8,000 sq ft) unit – now under offer to a major pub operator – to 2,490m2 (26,800 sq ft) in East Street, a unit previously occupied by Fads, Allied Carpets and Bitz Cards, at £230,000 pa.
Still in East Street, Sports Soccer paid more than £1.5m to a local pension fund for the freehold interest on a unit previously occupied by Harveys, and took a surrender on the lease.
The opening of The Mall at Bristol has worried many doing business in Somerset’s towns. But, says David Foot of Bruton Knowles, a programme of town-centre enhancements and the appointment of a town-centre manager, combined with the M&S move, have bolstered Taunton’s confidence.
Elsewhere in Somerset, MEPC’s Clarks Village goes from strength to strength with latest sales figures showing a 34% increase in business. It now has hopes for a fourth phase under a local planning strategy that allows for extra retail space.
Weston Super Mare, in the north of the county, however, is more vulnerable to lost trade, being just 25 minutes’ drive-time from the mega mall.
But the town is determined not to cave-in to competition and has recently published proposals for the 21st century. Graham Quick of North Somerset council says that it particularly addresses the need to upgrade the town-centre environment and solve traffic problems.
“We would have been doing this anyway, but The Mall has definitely focused everybody’s attention,” he says. “We are a tourist centre so, at the moment, the market is still strong. But the testing time for our retailers will come at Christmas.”
Elsewhere in the county, Mendip district council has also been addressing its future with in-depth research into business property requirements. The research highlights concern about the supply of development land – no more than 12.1ha (30 acres), and half of that concentrated in Shepton Mallet, one of the district’s four key towns.
Chris Dawson of Cluttons Daniel Smith, one of the agents involved in the research, says that the district local plan attempts to address the problem with an allocation of 36.5ha (90 acres), including 16.9ha (42 acres) at Frome and 6.5ha (16 acres) at Gate Lane in Wells.
Somerset
