Barclays signs with ASDA for Poole requirement

Supermarket group ASDA has signed a preliminary agreement to develop and lease a 100,000 sq ft office headquarters to Barclays Bank at its site in West Quay Road, Poole, EGi has learnt. Barclays will tell its staff today that they will be moving to a new site a short distance from its current offices, the 300,000 sq ft Barclays House, in Wimborne Road, Poole. Barclays – Poole’s largest private employer – announced last week that it would be cutting 1,100 jobs in its processing centre in the area over the next three years and consolidating into a new, smaller headquarters in either Poole or Bournemouth. EGi revealed last August that Barclays had launched the largest office requirement the Poole and Bournemouth areas have seen in several years. Options under consideration included enlisting a partner for a major redevelopment of Barclays House. The group said it would only consider locations in a 25-mile radius of Poole, leaving just a handful of sites capable of filling its requirement. Construction is expected to begin in 2008 and the building will be ready for occupation in 2010. The preliminary agreement is subject to signing an agreement to lease and receiving planning permission from the local authority. Atisreal acted for Barclays; Warwick Martell represented ASDA.