Following the granting of planning permission in July work started at the weekend on the site of the former Thomas Greengrocers’ storage building to create a chic shopping area for Ruddington.
The ‘mews’ style development off High Street by Victoria Properties will turn the land to the rear of some of its existing Church Street shops into a brand new retail space – comprising four additional shops, three flats and two office units. Access will be through a new archway alongside Philo’s Delicatessen on High Street. Two shops will fill the space between the entrance and The Bottle Top, as shown in the image below.
Some other small outbuildings on the land are also being knocked down, whilst Philo’s former ‘garden’ will become part of the new outdoor space – with café-style seating on the pedestrianised area, as illustrated above. Work started swiftly, with slate removal from the former Thomas’s single storey storage building followed quickly by its demolition to reveal the site behind it, which now needs to be cleared. This will be followed by several weeks’ work to put in the footings and the damp course before construction of the new properties begins.
Brian Perkins, of Victoria Properties, told us: “We’ve been working behind the scenes to get everything right before we started. This includes sourcing 35,000 specialist bricks and other materials to match the other buildings around it. We’ll try to minimise disruption to the public during the work – so that it shouldn’t badly affect traffic or other businesses.”
Certainly, given the volume of vehicles flowing along our High Street nowadays, along with forthcoming events such as the Ruddington Christmas Fayre – when the road will be closed to traffic – this could be a challenge! However, workers were there facilitating motorists this morning, whilst mud deposited on the highway by site vehicles was quickly cleared up. It is still envisaged the shops surrounding the development will be able to remain open as usual throughout the construction period, too. Additionally, the Honeycomb Christian Charity Shop will benefit from an extra entrance straight off the new precinct once work is complete in around six months’ time.
Brian adds that still no firm name has been decided upon for his new shopping area: “As with our other developments, we’d like ‘Victoria’ to be part of it. There’s already a ‘Victoria Court’ in Ruddington – so maybe ‘Victoria Mall’ or ‘Victoria Mews’? We’re open to suggestions!”
Other recent thoughts have been “Victoria Walk” or “Victoria Arcade”. Please keep your ideas coming…
You can access further details about these plans>>HERE<<.
Meantime, by unhappy coincidence, after planning approval was granted to Steve Bell in September for the former Barclay & Cook store premises at 7-9 High Street, partial demolition of that building is happening at exactly the same time just across the road!
This will then be reconstructed in three storeys, to the slightly revised design shown below, comprising retail (use class A1), financial and professional services (use class A2) and restaurant / café (use class A3) on the ground, first and second floors, plus offices (use class B1(a)) on the first and second floors only. Entrance gates to the yard will also be erected.
Some residents and traders have expressed surprise and concern that two major demolition and rebuilding projects on opposite sides of High Street have been allowed to start simultaneously. We’ll keep you posted with the progress of both at RUDDINGTON.info.
The full, revised 7-9 High Street plans 19/01335/FUL – a modification of 18/0212/FUL – can be found >>HERE<<.
