Howard Group completes sale of Haverhill Retail Park

The Haverhill Retail Park in Suffolk has been sold to Barsham Securities, a Beccles-based private property development and investment company.

The retail park, developed by Howard Group, comprises of 27,000 square feet of retail accommodation with large landscaped parking areas.

The park is currently let to operators Pets at Home, Home Bargains and Pure Gym.

Colin Brown, director – development, Howard Group, said: “As a family-owned business with strong values, we strive to create places that have a positive impact on the communities around them as well as to deliver benefit and value to the local area.

“Taking an innovative approach to showcase the flexibility of the units at Haverhill Retail Park has resulted in a national brand occupier list that has significantly raised the retail profile of the town.

“More specifically, the letting to PureGym in October last year, one of the largest leisure operators in Europe, brought an affordable lifestyle brand to the town, which is both a complimentary offering to existing tenants on the retail park as well as the wider Haverhill community.

“The park’s location within the town and the attractive long leases combined to make Haverhill Retail Park a very attractive investment opportunity and we are delighted to hand over the reins to Barsham Securities as the now owners.”

Over the years plans have been approved for an out of town retail park with industrial/manufacturing accommodation to the rear, but it was 2015 before sufficient interest from national retailers was secured to commence development.

The new estate, along with the adjacent site sold to Lidl in 2015, has created around 150 jobs.

As part of the original planning consent Howard Group funded a new pedestrian crossing on Ehringshausen Way as well as gifting a parcel of land to the St Edmundsbury Borough Council to extend the county wildlife site, alongside the old Haverhill railway line.

Stuart Holmes, director of Barsham Securities, said: “We are delighted to have secured this high-profile, new retail property for our investment portfolio.

“The strong tenants, being the only retail park in Haverhill and situated in a prosperous and growing Suffolk town, made this an investment opportunity we wanted to secure, and in line with our investment and portfolio strategy.”