Retail giant targets town return after six years

Retail giant Next is bidding to reopen a store in a Scottish town six years after it left following a lengthy planning battle.

The company lost its fight to open an out-of-town facility in Dumfries and shut its Loreburne Centre site in 2018.

It now runs a click-and-collect pod but hopes to open a full-scale store in a vacant unit at the Cuckoo Bridge retail park.

A statement lodged with Dumfries and Galloway Council said it would represent a £2m investment in the town and support about 35 jobs.

The company hopes to persuade the local authority that the time is right to vary planning conditions at the site in order to allow it to open the store.

It said that could be a "further step towards revitalisation" of the retail park by bringing a "market-leading retailer" back to the town.

It argued that refusal would mean the floorspace would remain vacant and have a "negative impact on visual amenity and perceptions" of the site.

Next also said it would reduce the need for its customers to travel "substantial distance" to one of its other stores.

Next operated a store in the town centre of Dumfries for more than three decades.

However, it said that the site in a shopping centre no longer suited its business needs and sought to move to Cuckoo Bridge.

A bid to get conditions lifted in order to allow that to happen ultimately failed when the Scottish government ruled a store could find "suitable and available" accommodation in the town centre.

That decision prompted Next not to renew its Loreburne Centre lease and leave the town.

The company has since opened a click-and-collect pod at Cuckoo Bridge but it has "remained keen" to return with a full-scale store with its closest alternative sites in Gretna, which is 24 miles away.

Now it is hoping the council will agree to lift planning conditions designed to protect the town centre in order to allow it to operate at an out-of-town site.