Barnet Road, London Colney
Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd

Open A1 retail park secured on Green Belt land facilitating occupation by Marks & Spencer and mezzanine floors doubling up remaining permitted space.

Sainsbury’s was keen to utilise 10 acres of land between its store and the M25 for a retail park. However, the site was in the greenbelt. Faced with the inherent difficulty of trying to obtain permission for retail development on a greenbelt site next to the M25, it was clear that a highly innovative solution was needed.

A review was undertaken of local concerns in nearby communities which included dialogue with local councillors. It was discovered that despite having a by-pass, the adjoining village of London Colney was still suffering from significant lorry movements. The major source of these movements arose from a collection of uses within the village centre. They accommodated a garage with a diesel storage outlet, adjacent HGV recovery facilities and various other vehicle related uses all in different ownerships. The Council recognised them as non-conforming uses but their high values did not by themselves facilitate residential redevelopment.

We promoted a package of policies with the Council such that the village centre sites should be allocated for housing and that the greenbelt boundary should be redrawn to accommodate retail development next to Sainsbury’s store. A legal agreement would ensure that the non-conforming uses would be extinguished and residential permission granted prior to the implementation of the retail development. The complementary pair of policies were promoted through the Local Plan process and attracted public support.

With this policy basis, the next challenge was to secure an open A1 permission for over 110,000ft² of retail space, part of which would facilitate Marks & Spencer coming alongside Sainsbury’s store and to avoid the Secretary of State intervening. Further negotiations with the District and County Councils, adjoining authorities and the Government Office resulted in permission being granted. This contained no user restrictions. Instead we negotiated a condition which limited the maximum and minimum unit size. This ensured that the planning authority’s aspirations to attract a department store and further unit shops into the city centre would not be prejudiced.

Marks & Spencer then opened its flagship store on the site by using part of the permission obtained. Sainsbury’s held the balance of the permission in a significantly rising market. We successfully extended the permission’s time limit on two occasions, thus further exploiting our client’s ability to enhance value.

The retail terrace was then built out. During construction we provided advice on the tactics and timing for the insertion of mezzanine floorspace. This involved a careful review of the terms of the original permission. The retail terrace now provides almost twice the amount of floorspace initially permitted and has ensured that higher rental value tenants occupy space.