The Churchmanor Estates company plc is pleased to confirm that construction has now commenced on the £60m Stane Retail Park in Tollgate Colchester, with completion set for September 2021.
As part of the construction works, Churchmanor is spending £2.6million on
improvements to the Eight Ash Green A12 roundabout with a new four-way traffic signal junction and the widening of the Western Bypass to two lanes between Essex Yeomanry Way and the Sainsbury’s roundabout.
The scheme of 173,000sqft comprises of new stores for B&Q, Marks & Spencer Food Hall and Aldi, with the balance of the space set for additional retailers.
The scheme will allow all three retailers to open their latest format stores, improving the shopping experience for local communities. The B&Q unit is designed as one of the first of their new generation stores to include a covered builder’s yard and large improved garden centre.
Both Aldi and the M&S Food Hall retail units enable both companies to provide the full range of their retail offer, with Aldi having outgrown their
Lexden store.
Emma Proctor King, head of communications for Churchmanor said: “We are thrilled to have started work on our Retail Park. As a company, we have supported the growth of Colchester since 1989 when we built Colchester Business Park.
“We now hope that our new retail park together with the long-overdue highway improvements that we are committed to will mean a new and improved retail offer for the Stanway and Colchester communities.”
Paul Crisp, retail & property director, B&Q said: “We’re looking forward to
welcoming our customers in Colchester to our new store next year. Built in our latest store format to give an improved shopping experience, the new store will replace our existing B&Q store at Lightship Way.”
Roland Stanley, Aldi property director, said “We have enjoyed welcoming customers from across the Stanway area to our existing store in Lexden since opening in 2010.
“Our new store at Stane Retail Park will be a larger, modern format store with substantially improved car parking providing both our customers and staff with fantastic facilities but still offering our high-quality products at our everyday low-cost prices. All of our colleagues at Lexden will transfer to the new store when it opens.”
Robert Morray, head of property planning at M&S said: “We’ve been serving
customers in Colchester Town Centre for over a hundred years and we’re really pleased to be able to improve our offering in the area with a new Foodhall at Stane Retail Park.”