Woolworth's Bognor site 'should be snapped up'

Chartered surveyor Keith Brinsmead said he expected the prime shopping site to be snapped up very quickly. The store has the biggest trading area in the London Road precinct at 2,401sq m ahead of New Look at 2,267sq m.

"There's a lot of demand for these Woolworths' shops nationally because of their size and location. We can see the Primarks of this world and others like them very keen to get their hands on them once the shops become empty.

"The Bognor branch of Woolworths is a prime site, slap bang in the best part of the London Road precinct.

"I would be very surprised if that site stays empty for long. I would expect that to be taken on by another retailer and start trading very quickly," he said. "I can't see it being empty this time next year."

The closure of Woolworths will occur about 18-and-a-half years after Marks and Spencer's withdrawal from the precinct plunged the town centre into retailing gloom and doom.

It was a couple of years before the M and S premises were occupied by Littlewoods. That store closed a couple of years ago but the building was snapped up within a couple of months by its current occupier, New Look, in 2005.

But Mr Brinsmead, a director of Parsons Son and Basley estate agents and chartered surveyors of Lennox Street, said a repeat was very unlikely.

He stressed he had no knowledge of any potential new occupiers for the building nor the exact process through which the administrators of Woolworth would put the building on the market.

He explained that there continued to be a general demand for shops in Bognor in spite of the recession. "People still want to open up but I expect there will be a shake-up after the Christmas and new year period and we will see one or two more empty shops around the town," he added.

"The demand we are seeing is local. It's either local people wanting to open new businesses or people who have got businesses in the area wanting to open in Bognor as well."

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