Glebe Garden Centre, Countesthorpe.

Client

QD Commercial Holdings Ltd.

Size

2,340 sq m

Local Authority

Blaby District Council

Sectors

Retail and Town Centres

Key Project Information

  • A scheme that will deliver a significant extension to an existing garden centre to secure its long-term viability.
  • The proposed extension would enhance the existing retail and restaurant/café offer at the centre along with the introduction of new ancillary uses at the garden centre including a children’s play centre and function room.
  • We were instructed to prepare a supporting retail impact and sequential assessment in support of the application, the findings of which were endorsed by the local planning authority.

We acted on behalf of QD Commercial Holdings Ltd to prepare a retail assessment in support of their detailed planning application for the extension to their existing Glebe Garden Centre at Countesthorpe.  This extension included doubling the amount of retail floorspace provided by the garden centre whilst significantly increasing the size of the café/restaurant and introducing a new ancillary children’s play centre use.

We prepared and agreed a scope for the assessment through pre-application discussions with the local planning authority.  An assessment was then submitted which considered the impact of the proposed development on nearby town centres setting out in detail the specific offer of the garden centre and how it would principally compete with other similarly sized garden centres in the wider area.  Whilst the restaurant and children’s play centre uses were ancillary, the assessment also considered the potential impact of these leisure uses on the defined town centre.  This concluded that the proposed development would not have a significant adverse impact on any defined town centre and therefore accorded with the relevant impact test.

The assessment also included a detailed sequential assessment which considered in detail the appropriate area of search based upon the catchment area that the existing, and extended, garden centre serves.  This was done through an interrogation of local shopping pattern data, as well as data provided by the garden centre’s loyalty card scheme.  This sequential assessment then considered the suitability and availability of sites located within a number of defined centres which fell within the catchment area ultimately demonstrating that there were no suitable and available sites capable of accommodating the extended garden centre.

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