A consortium of Northumberland businessmen has hired Newcastle-based Silverstone Building Consultancy to project manage the construction of a new convenience store within the county.
Work on the 4,000 sq ft retail unit at Pegswood, near Morpeth, has already started with the project pre-let to the Co-op Group. The food retailer announced last year that it wanted to acquire new sites in the North-East as part of its expansion programme to open at least 100 new UK stores in an attempt to re-establish its reputation as a convenience store chain.
Expected to create 15 jobs when completed this April, the store is being built on the site of the village’s former sports and social club. The Main Street supermarket has been designed to include a 3,000 sq ft sales area with the remaining 1,000 sq ft devoted to office and storage space.
“With a shortage of design and build projects coming forward in the market we are pleased to have been appointed to manage this one,” commented Mark Coulter, associate director at Silverstone. His company has previously project managed numerous design and build projects including a 165,000 sq ft unit for pioneering vehicle designer Gestamp Tallent Automotive.
David Pollard is a director at Enviro Property Partners. “We are delighted to see the steelwork frame going up and we have already received very positive feedback from local residents who are keen to see the store finished and open for business as soon as possible.
“We are also grateful to Northumberland County Council, which granted planning permission for the development, which will undoubtedly be beneficial to the local community,” he added.
The consortium’s plans were approved by the authority last summer after a previous application was withdrawn just before Christmas at the request of the county council because some mining issues needed to be resolved. At the time Pollard said: “We had to do some tests at the site, but thankfully the results came back ok and we were able to re-submit our application.”
He also confirmed Enviro is developing further plans for the Pegswood area which, for years, was the site of one of Britain’s biggest open cast mines. “This is the first phase of the re-development for this area and plans for the second phase will be brought forward in due course,” Pollard said.
The photo shows; from left to right: Anthony Nelson, Northern structures, David Pollard and Peter Hodgson of Enviro Property Group and Mark Coulter, Silverstone Building Consultancy at the new Co-op site in Pegswood.
