The Churchmanor Estates Company plc has this week been granted planning consent at Stane Retail Park, Stanway (opposite Sainsburys) and has now submitted an amendment to the planning permission to move the consented M&S Food Hall from its current unit of 11,800sqft to a new unit within the scheme of 20,000sqft.

Stane Retail Park provides a new 80,000sqft store for B&Q together with an Aldi supermarket, M&S Food Hall and 5 additional units. With the scheme comes a range of highway improvements totalling some £2.5million which will be paid for by Churchmanor and include traffic lights at the Eight Ash Green A12 junction and duelling of part of the Western Bypass.

Stephen Clark, of Churchmanor, commented, “I am pleased that Marks and Spencer have decided to take more space at Stane Retail Park and the enlarged unit size is very much now the trend with M&S Food Hall units. We feel confident that this will enhance the success of the retail park, and provide an improved shopping experience for the residents of Stanway.”

Robert Morray, Head of Property Planning at M&S said, “We’ve been serving customers in Colchester Town Centre for over a hundred years and we’re really pleased to be able to improve our offering in the area with an enlarged Foodhall at Stane Park. Our new store will serve the residents of Stanway the very best of M&S food and drink and we look forward to updating the community as plans for the store progress”.

The second phase of the development at Stane Park will join the existing Leisure Park, already home to the successful Princess Charlotte pub, Nandos, KFC and Starbucks.