A BED shop is looking to find a new home in Basingstoke as the owners of the retail park where it is located are planning to knock it down.

Bensons for Beds is based at Brighton Hill Retail Park but is looking to relocate to the next-door St Michael’s Retail Park when its lease comes to an end this month.

As previously reported, Equation Properties Limited - the owners of Brighton Hill Retail Park - want to knock it down and replace it with a 24-hours a day, seven days a week commercial warehouse operation.

Read more: Brighton Hill Retail Park to be knocked down 

Bensons for Beds has submitted a planning application to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council asking to amalgamate two units at St Michael’s.

As part of its plans, units 9B and 10A, in between Greggs and Coral betting shop, would be amalgamated to make space for Bensons for Beds, creating a 463 square metre store.

Its application states that the retailer occupying these two units will “address the now long-standing vacancy of this unit since the retail park first opened in October 2018”.

It claims that the unit has been “marketed extensively” during the three years since the retail park opened but has “only received interest from Bensons Beds”.

It adds: “The provision of a Bensons for Beds store at the site also allows the retailer to retain their presence in Basingstoke. At present, their only store in the wider Basingstoke area is the current unit at Brighton Hill Retail Park which they are vacating.

“The nearest stores are in Farnborough or Andover. As such, the opening of a store on St Michael’s Retail Park would retain Bensons in Basingstoke and allow for a continued demand to be met.”

The application states that the relocation to St Michael’s Retail Park, in Winchester Road, will retain full and part-time jobs within the community.

The store would be open from 10am to 8pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays; from 10am to 6pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays; from 9am to 6pm on Saturdays; and from 10am to 5pm on Sundays.

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