Home Bargains set for new Inverness superstore after planning permission granted by Highland Council
Home Bargains’ plans to open another Inverness superstore in the city’s Longman area and create up to 60 new jobs have been given the green light.
The decision by Highland Council planners means the retailer, which already operates a superstore in Rose Street - and could win permission this week for an unrelated £5 million store in the Smithton area - will be able to open an outlet inside the former Wickes DIY shop in Henderson Road.
Home Bargains’ interest in the Henderson Road site first emerged in October when the building’s owner, Sackville UK Property Select II (GP), lodged an application seeking to change the use of the former Wickes DIY outlet - as the building had been restricted to use by non-food retailers only.
Documents included alongside that application revealed that Home Bargains was the potential tenant eyeing up a new store within the building - necessitating the change of use from solely non-food retail in order to accommodate its mix of food and non-food goods.
And Highland Council’s decision on Friday to remove conditions that restricted the former Wickes site to non-food retail only, means that there are now no barriers preventing Home Bargains from following through on the plan to open a new store there.
In a lengthy design statement that was lodged with the application, the site owner’s agents, Savills, said Home Bargains plans to retain its Rose Street site alongside the new Henderson Road store, despite both locations being close to each other.
Savills’ statement said: "There is a Home Bargains located within Inverness city centre at Rose Street who intend to continue their operations within this location.
"The existing city centre store does not allow for an outdoor projects area / garden centre which demonstrates the requirement for a further unit to be provided within the Inverness area.
"Home Bargains envisage Inverness as a ‘dual store city’ given the ongoing success of their existing operations within the area.
"The new condition to allow Home Bargains to operate from the existing premises would not likely materially compete with existing retail operators within Inverness city centre.
"It follows that the proposed development will not materially alter either the number of visitors to the centre, or their reasons to visit them. Residents will continue to visit the centre for their wider retail, service, leisure and associated facilities and its wider cultural and tourist function, which would not be impacted upon at all by the proposed development."
The new Henderson Road store will be larger than the Rose Street site, with Savills indicating that Home Bargains intends to use more than 2700sqm of vacant floor space inside the building, as well as an additional 800sqm outside for a garden centre and outdoor projects area.
The statement also confirmed that up to 60 full-time equivalent (FTE) roles would be created - more than double the 27 FTE positions that were employed at the site under Wickes’ tenure.
Although these documents confirmed that a new Henderson Road outlet is intended to run alongside the city’s existing Rose Street shop, the material made no reference to Home Bargains’ other plans for a new, purpose-built store in the Smithton/Stratton area that would be accessed off Barn Church Road. That will be decided by Highland Council’s south planning applications committee on Tuesday.
At the time that the Henderson Road application was lodged, The Inverness Courier reached out to Home Bargains to see if those plans would have any impact on its proposed Smithton development but the retailer responded that it had “nobody available for comment”.
However, other major retailers in the city operate multiple sites without issue - such as Tesco, which boasts four, and Scotmid.
And Home Bargains has also been on a wider expansion push in recent months, having only recently opened a new purpose-built store in Dingwall.
It also announced plans to increase its number of UK retail stores from just under 600 to somewhere between 800 and 1000 as it seeks to continue growing its profits - it posted a 12.4 per cent increase in pre-tax profits in its most recent annual figures.
Granting permission for the change of use at the former Wickes outlet, Highland Council’s planning officers said: “The unit is currently permitted by condition to sell non-food bulky retail goods, however the applicant wishes to amend the permitted retail use to allow for non-food retail and up to 30 per cent of the floorspace for the sale of food retail.”
It continued: “The building is currently limited to selling non-food bulky retail [via conditions].”
They concluded: “It is considered that the assessment provided is competent and demonstrates that there will not be a significant adverse impact to the vitality and viability of Inverness city centre. It will also bring an existing vacant unit, in a prime location back into use.”
As well as enabling the site to stock a mix of food and non-food items, the council’s planners also attached conditions to bar the store from being used solely as a food retailer.
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