Huge new shopping centre near completion

£19M COMPLEX INCLUDES M&S AND ALDI STORES

- WILLIAM TELFORD

PLYMOUTH’S new £19 million shopping centre is near completion, with M&S, Aldi and other stores due to open this year in the north of the city.

Work only began on the ambitious Derriford District Centre in June last year, but already Aldi is fitting out its supermarket and the other stores are not far behind.

Devon Contractors, which is in charge of the build, gave The Herald access to the site for the first time last week as the units, roads and car park are all close to being ready.

In addition to Aldi and M&S, Pure Gym, Pets Corner, Oggy Oggy and Costa Coffee are all moving in.

The first steel frames, for units one to three, went up in August last year and a second set of steel frames, for units four to six, were in place just before Christmas. Work has gone on all this year and brick and blockwork and wall cladding is now in place, with composite panel roofs on top of the units.

These are included in two huge buildings, each with three businesses going into them. In the first block, units one to three are to be filled by Aldi, Oggy Oggy and M&S.

The first unit has already been handed over to Aldi, which has signage up already and is working on getting the inside ready to be turned into a 1,317 sq m supermarket, with a 347 sq m warehouse in the back.

The 93 sq m Oggy Oggy outlet and the huge M&S store are nearly ready to be handed over to those companies for fitting out. The M&S has a vast sales floor of 1,302 sq m, only slightly smaller than Aldi, but with a larger warehouse, of 554 sq m.

Units 4 to 6 will house Pets Corner, PureGym and Costa Coffee drivethrough in a separate block. This is near completion but not quite as advanced as the larger row of shops.